Bacigalupi, Paolo: The Drowned Cities
The Drowned Cities (2012)
Written by: Paolo Bacigalupi
Genre: YA/Post Apocalyptic
Pages: 448 (Hardcover)
Why I Read It: If you know me, you know that I'm a Bacigalupi fangirl. And unlike other fans, who discovered the author with his Hugo-winning novel The Windup Girl, I discovered him long before that, with a wickedly awesome short story called "Pop Squad," which was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction back in 2006. Ever since then, I'll read whatever he writes. To date, I personally prefer his short story collection to his published novels, but his young adult novels have won me over in comparison to the Hugo-winner. At any rate, getting the companion novel to Ship Breaker was a cause for celebration, and while I couldn't gobble it up as soon as it arrived in my mailbox, I did relish the experience of getting back to the world and seeing just how screwed up Bacigalupi could make this particular future.
The premise: ganked from: Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.
In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man -- a bioengineered war beast named Tool -- who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.
This thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi's highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Yay in the vague-ish spoilers sense. For those of you avoiding spoilers, just skip to "My Rating" and you'll be fine. Everyone else, onward!
One of the biggest complaints that I ran into, over and over, with Ship Breaker, was that Tool, the most interesting character of the book, wasn't well fleshed out. I hadn't had much of a problem with it. I think it was one of those cases where I noticed the issue, but didn't care, because I was too engaged by everything else. And now, trying to remember a novel I read back in 2010, I still don't remember the particulars of Tool's involvement, so little so that because I know The Drowned Cities is a companion book (I dare say a prequel), I'm tempted to go back and re-read Ship Breaker just to see how everything connects.
Don't get me wrong: you don't have to read Ship Breaker before reading The Drowned Cities. It's well and truly a companion novel, in that it's set in the same world but tells its own, complete, independent story, which is rather smart for a young adult novel, especially one that didn't come out until two years after the first.
At any rate, I think this is technically a prequel, because the very first chapter reveals how Tool escapes his masters and what ensues. The story is actually quite different from Ship Breaker. I didn't find it as startling violent, which is odd, because there's plenty of violence. I don't know if I'm just used to what Bacigalupi does, or if I've read YA novels even MORE violent and therefore this just doesn't phase me? Whatever the cause, I was able to sit down and read at a decent pace, so much so that at one point, I kind of pulled myself out of the book and thought, "Remember when you couldn't believe that Bacigalupi could pull off YA? This is so perfect!" and now it doesn't phase me, that Bacigalupi can do this. Of course, I've already seen him do it once, but I've also read far darker and gorier tales by other YA authors, so again, it's amazing what you can get used to.
One of the interesting differences in The Drowned Cities is that our main character is a heroine. A one-handed one, no less. Yes, we do get other POVs: Tool's, Mouse/Ghost's, and Ocho. But Mahlia is definitely the main feature, with Tool a close second.
Another thing I noticed and appreciated were just how vivid the descriptions were. Take this, on page 41:
Doctor Mahfouz's squat was tucked into a five-story war ruin. Missiles and bullets had left holes in its concrete walls, and the upper floors were missing entirely, showing where bombs had dropped down through the roof and blown the top to smithereens. But even with all the wreckage, the building still had good iron bones, and the doctor had chosen to nestle his squat in the second story, amongst those solid iron ribs.
Or this, a simple and to the point description of Ocho (page 97):
The wounded soldier boy's gaze focused on her for the first time. Gold-flecked green eyes, glinting violence. A face sculpted by war. Hard.
This from Tool's point of view, as he's waking (page 167):
Indeed, even as the man and girl spoke, more of Tool's faculties were returning, the world opening around him like a flower, petals splayed wide: scent, touch, taste, hearing. The world began to illustrate itself in his mind.
I think what I like so much about Bacigalupi's prose, on a technical level, is while it is rather straight forward, he always knows just the right metaphor to really drive the point home. This was a great one (page 213):
"You going soft on me, Sergeant?"
Ocho stiffened. The lieutenant's voice was soft, but there was a warning there. LIke the movement of a cottonmouth in the swamp, coming at you, and then you were bit and poisoned and dying.
I also really enjoyed the causal momentum of the plot. Everything that happens, it happens because of something else that comes before. There's no "and suddenly THIS happened!" twists to the story. The reader, should they want, can pinpoint exactly what's happening and everything that led up to it. I appreciate that as a reader, seeing a plot so expertly laid out but yet not so obviously outlined. Mahlia running into the soldier boys when trying to get medical supplies for Tool was a great obstacle, one I should have seen coming, but didn't. But of course they're out there, because we just saw their hunt for Tool and the attack of the gator. So everything fits together like a puzzle piece, and Bacigalupi shows just the right scenes that propel action forward but also give us a sense of who these people really are. This way, later on in the story, their actions make all the sense in the world.
And the world-building was quite fascinating. I spent most of this book thinking we were in New Orleans, because I'm an idiot, but once I realized the Drowned Cities were actually D.C. and the surrounding area, my mind was blown. And it also started making so much more sense why the Chinese would go there to start their peacekeeping efforts (and of course, it always made sense that it would be the Chinese that would try to save America from itself). And yet when the Chinese gave up and evacuated, I found myself reminded of the scene in the Broadway musical, Miss Saigon, when the American troops were pulling out of Saigon and the two leads (an American man who fathered a child on a Vietnamese girl) are separated by the chaos. Except, in The Drowned Cities, we are shown the inverse, which I found to be quite powerful. In this case, it wasn't so romantic: I'm not wholly convinced that Mahlia's father loved her and her mother, not enough at least to keep from abandoning them (and that was one difference in the musical: Chris, the marine, wanted to bring Kim with him).
Jeez, it's been ages since I've seen/listened to that musical! Anyway…
I loved Mouse's rebirth as Ghost. It was painful and yet so necessary for the story. The whole story of friend trying to save friend just about broke my heart, but yet the story ended right where it needed to.
I'm going to wrap this up with a question: I'm pretty sure this post-apocalypse was caused by climate change, but I could be wrong, since it's been years since I've read Ship Breaker. Do we know that for sure? Can anyone refresh my memory?
My Rating: Couldn't Put It Down
It's a story about threat and loss and the extremes we'll go in order to get what we want and protect what we have. It's a story about life, how it never goes the way we want it too, but yet somehow, we can emerge all the stronger because of it. I daresay it's a better book than Ship Breaker, but it's been a while since I've read that one, and maybe I can't truly compare until I read them back-to-back. Suffice to say, I love this post-apocalyptic world Bacigalupi has created, and how he does not shy from showing that hell happens to everyone, not just adults, but especially the children, the teens. The idea that no one is truly safe is one that often gets glossed over is YA post-apocalyptic stories, and Bacigalupi is the kind of author that makes the reader genuinely fear for his characters' safety. And that's a good thing.
And as with Ship Breaker, I'd have no qualms recommending this to adults who are also fans of Bacigalupi's work. I still say that for readers who haven't read his stuff, his short story collection is the best place to start, because it shows such a wide range of what Bacigalupi can accomplish, but these YA novels are a wonderful place to start if short stories are not your thing. They are dark and violent and yet fascinating. Bacigalupi has a fabulous way of extrapolating the future based on current issues, and I know that I'll always be first in line to get one of his books. And for those of you who read Ship Breaker and wanted more Tool, here you go. Wish granted.
Cover Commentary: I like the colors. However, I'm not a big fan of the style change from the hardcover Ship Breaker to this. I mean, it could be worse (they could've done to this what they did with the Leviathan trilogy), but it's not that engaging for me. However, if I'd paid closer attention to the cover to begin with, my brain may not have imploded when I realized where the Drowned Cities really were!
Next up: God's War by Kameron Hurley