My Review
Post-apocalypse meets pastoral in The Great North by J. Scott Coatsworth. The story has bits and pieces of the modern world sprinkled in, laid waste by the idiocy of man, of course, that highlight the fact the world has changed in the future. But the majority of the story reads much like a tale you'd expect from the past when farming held sway and a single storm could decimate a people.
What I really liked about The Great North was the way the new reality shaped the cultures of the people, and how, even though they were relatively close in distance, Dwyn and Mael's people took completely different paths to survival. While the science isn't named outright, the story themes include genetics, highlighting how insular the different towns are, based on the character's fascination with each other's coloring (as each village seems to skew toward a basic 'type') as well as sexuality because, face it, when extinction is on the line and numbers are dwindling, not having kids just isn't an option, especially when you have a small pool to begin with.
Of course, menage relationships versus strictly heterosexual ones is quite the gap in paths. These very different philosophies come smack up against each other when Mael's people have to flee their home after a great storm and are on the brink of collapse when they find Dwyn's village. A short break, some trading, a moment to recover from the tragedy is all Mael thinks they will find when he accepts Dwyn's offer to let their caravan camp close by.
So what happens, when Dwyn faces going against his village's morals and laws because he is drawn to Mael? Can Mael, whose people accept that a person can love more than one at a time and everyone deserves to be happy, handle Dwyn's fears based on the brutality he'd witnessed himself against a man who'd dared to be a holer? Can they find a way to be together or will duty and fear win?
You'll have to read the book to find out!
What Survives?
I saw a fascinating
play a year or two ago at the Capital Stage, one of our local theaters that
specializes in putting on plays that are experimental, modern, or just make you
think.
In the play, an
unspecified event has just wiped out most of human civilization, and the
survivors latch on to the TV show the Simpsons, trying to remember and re-tell
the plots of their favorite episodes as a way to stave off the horror of what
has happened, and to find common cultural ground. The play progresses across a
couple hundred years, and these recreated episodes of the Simpsons family and
the assorted connected characters become for the future humans what
Shakespeare’s plays are for us, as well as a reflection of the tragedy that has
befallen humankind.
They are both a window
into the past and a mirror of the present.
As the author, Anne
Washburn, explains:
It was just musing, in the subway, about what would happen to pop
culture after a sudden fall of civilization, wondering what would survive, and
how it might be useful. I wondered what would happen if you took a TV show and
pushed it forward in time, and then forward again, what different needs it
would serve, and how serving those different needs would change it. I thought
maybe "Friends" or "Seinfeld" or "Cheers,"
anything which had been beloved or popular, and I ended up hitting on "The
Simpsons," a bit at random. Steve Cosson of the Civilians (an investigative
theater group of which I am a member) approached me to see if I had a play they
could commission and the first step in writing it was to gather a group of
actors and ask them to remember "Simpsons" episodes. The one they
best remembered was "Cape Feare" and I made a transcript from that
session and used it to begin the play.
This dynamic was one of
the things on my mind when I wrote “The Great North.” What parts of our current
pop culture would survive an apocalypse? While not the dominant theme of the
story, it was something I had fun playing with.
One example:
Dwyn
redoubled his pace. He moved with focus and purpose, and soon he was closing
the gap with his friends.
"Someone's
being chased by a lion," Baia said with a laugh.
"Or a
tiger." Declan grinned, his nice smile only missing one tooth, lost to a
fight with one of the Beckham brothers the year before.
Dwyn
grinned. "Or a bear?" Dwyn only knew lions and tigers from the fairy
tale his mother used to tell them, "The Girl and the Aus." He had no
idea what an Aus was, either.
Bears he
knew. The hunters occasionally brought one home, and old Alesser had a
five-line scar across his wrinkled face that he claimed came from one of the
beasts.
There are more,
littered throughout the story. I had a lot of fun scattering them like apple
seeds, to see how they would sprout.
I hope you enjoy them
too!
Press
Kit – The Great North
Publisher:
Mischief Corner Books
Author: J.
Scott Coatsworth
Cover
Artist: Freddy MacKay
Length: 34K
Format: eBook
Release
Date: 6/14/17
Pairing:
MM
Price: 3.99
Genre:
MM, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Romance, Myths, Legends, Gods, Post-Apocalyptic
Blurb:
Dwyn is
a young man in the small, isolated town of Manicouga, son of the Minstor, who
is betrothed to marry Kessa in a few weeks’ time.
Mael is
shepherding the remains of his own village from the north, chased out by a
terrible storm that destroyed Land’s End.
Both are
trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. When the two meet, their
love and attraction may change the course of history.
—————
The
Great North was inspired by St. Dwynwen's Day, also known as Welsh Valentines
Day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwynwen
Excerpt:
"We
celebrate Dwyn's Day as a testament to true love and sacrifice. It's a
remembrance of the way things were and the way they've come to be. In the end,
let it be a reminder that every one of us has the power to change the course of
events through love."
—Dillon
Cooper, New Gods and Monsters, Twenty
years After Dwyn
The gray clouds scudded by overhead, blowing in quickly from the
east.
Dwyn shivered and pulled on his woolen cap. It was cold out,
unusual for so early in the fall. The rains had been heavy this season, the
wettest in a generation, and Circle Lake was close to overflowing its banks. If
he stretched to look over the rows of corn plants, he could see the waters
lapping at the shore far below, as if hungry to consume his village of
Manicouga.
His father had consulted the elders, some of whom had seen more
than fifty summers, and everyone agreed things were changing. Whether that augured
good or ill was anyone's guess.
He shrugged and moved along the row of plants, breaking off ears
of corn and throwing them into the jute sack that hung from his shoulder.
Ahead of him, two of his age-mates, Declan and Baia, were working
their way down the next two rows.
Dwyn frowned. He got distracted easily, and he'd let the two of
them get a jump on him. That wouldn't do.
He redoubled his pace. He moved with focus and purpose, and soon
he was closing the gap with his friends.
"Someone's being chased by a lion," Baia said with a
laugh.
"Or a tiger." Declan grinned, his nice smile only
missing one tooth, lost to a fight with one of the Beckham brothers the year
before.
Dwyn grinned. "Or a bear?" Dwyn only knew lions and
tigers from the fairy tale his mother used to tell them, "The Girl and the
Aus." He had no idea what an Aus was, either.
Bears he knew. The hunters occasionally brought one home, and old
Alesser had a five-line scar across his wrinkled face that he claimed came from
one of the beasts.
A shout went up from ahead of them. Dwyn craned his neck to see
what the ruckus was, but he couldn't make out anything. "What's going on?"
Declan, who was half a head taller, looked toward the commotion. "Hard
to tell. Something down by the road."
Dwyn laid down his sack carefully and ran up the hill to one of
the old elms that dotted the field. He climbed into the tree, scurrying up
through the leaves and branches until he had a clear view of the Old Road. It
ran from up north to somewhere down south, maybe near the ruins of old Quebec
if the merchant tales held any truth. Hardly anyone from Manicouga ever
followed it, but occasionally traders would follow it to town, bringing exotic
wares and news from the other villages that were scattered up and down its length.
They swore it went all the way down to the Heat, the great desert
that had consumed much of the world after the Reckoning.
"What's going on down there?" Baia called from below.
Dwyn tried to make sense of it. "There are three wagons
coming down the pass. They're loaded up with all sorts of things. They don't
look like traders though."
The first of the horse-drawn wagons had just reached the field
above the main township. It stopped, and someone hopped off to talk with the
villagers who had gathered from the fields.
"We need to get down there," Dwyn said, scrambling down
the tree trunk. "Something's happening." Nothing new ever happened in
Manicouga, and he wasn't going to miss it.
He grabbed his sack and sprinted toward the Old Road, not waiting
to see if Declan and Baia followed.
Buy Links Etc:
Barnes
& Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-great-north-j-scott-coatsworth/1126572845?ean=2940157258634
iBooks: https://itun.es/us/ec62jb.l
Author Bio:
Scott
spends his time between the here and now and the what
could be. Enticed into fantasy and sci fi by his mom at the tender age of
nine, he devoured her Science Fiction Book Club library. But as he grew up, he
wondered where all the people like him were in the books he was reading.
He decided that it
was time to create the kinds of stories he couldn’t find at his local bookstore.
If there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to
his own ends.
His friends say
Scott’s mind works a little differently – he sees relationships between things
that others miss, and gets more done in a day than most folks manage in a week.
He loves to transform traditional sci fi, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into
something unexpected.
He runs both Queer
Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, sites that bring queer people
together to promote and celebrate fiction that reflects their own lives.
Author Links:
Website: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com
Facebook
(personal): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth
Facebook (author
page): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworthauthor/
Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/jscoatsworth/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8392709.J_Scott_Coatsworth
QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/J.-Scott-Coatsworth/e/B011AFO4OQ
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