Mandie is playing another game of Orenda catch up and today her focus is on The Forcing by Paul Hardisty. I read the book last year and am looking forward to sharing my thoughts on the prequel, The Descent , on the blog next month. My review of the Forcing can be found here . Here’s what it’s about:
Source: Advance Reader Copy Release Date: 16 February 2022 Publisher: Orenda Books
About the Book
Lured by rumours of tropical sanctuary, a disparate group of men and women escape their inhospitable exile to seek freedom, in a near future where civilization has collapsed … A cataclysmic, clarion-call climate-change thriller from one of the world’s leading environmental scientists…
Civilisation is collapsing. Frustrated and angry after years of denial and inaction, a ‘government of youth’ has taken power in North America, and deemed all those older than a prescribed age responsible for the current state of the world, and decreed they should be ‘relocated’, their property and assets confiscated.
David Ashworth, known by his friends and students as Teacher, and his wife May, find themselves among the thousands being moved to ‘new accommodation’ in the abandoned southern deserts – thrown together with a wealthy industrialist and his wife, a high court lawyer, two recent immigrants to America, and a hospital worker. Together, they must come to terms with their new lives in a land rendered unrecognisable.
As the terrible truth of their situation is revealed, lured by rumours of a tropical sanctuary where they can live in peace, they plan a perilous escape. But the world outside is more dangerous than they could ever have imagined. And for those who survive, nothing will ever be the same again…
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Mandie’s Thoughts
Occasionally you read a book that has you going aaagggghhh by then end of it. Not because you didn’t enjoy it but because you know that you have to write a review for it and you just don’t know how you will go about it to do it full justice. Right now, The Forcing is one of those books for me and I would happily just say read it, loved it, you should buy it if you haven’t already but that’s not fair to the book or the author so sorry in advance if I make no sense whatsoever.
In a future where not to put too fine a point on it, things have gone tits up in a way we are currently only just imagining David Ashworth is with his class of students when he gets the letter he has been dreading…he and his wife have to leave the home they know, taking only essential items and move to a compound where their resources will be limited and they must work for everything. They fall into the category that sees them as too old, ones to be blamed for the current situation all over the world, the ones who did nothing. When they get to their new home it is soon evident they have been lied to about what lay ahead, and they are forced into shared accommodation with five other people and have to make the best of what they have.
The book has two timelines, one that is set in the new present and the other that charts the lives of the group of strangers from the time they are sent to their new “home”. Whist some including David try to make the best of what has happened, there are others including David’s wife May who clearly try to buck the rules and are just out for themselves and don’t appear to have any real redeeming qualities whatsoever. The worst of these is Argent, who somehow manages to always have more than the rest and manipulates those around him to his own end.
This is definitely a warning as to what could happen if we do not think about what we are doing but at the same time it is not in your face and preachy. For me the real story is about human nature and what lengths people will go to in order to survive and retain the status quo. Even the characters that you hate still have you intrigued and there were things that happened and that were revealed that I was not expecting. As ever Paul Hardisty has produced a book that is both thought provoking and compelling, and I look forward to his next book that I am sure will have me scratching my head as to how I will put words on a page to do it justice.
About the Author
Canadian Paul E Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa. He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a. Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The first four novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying , The Evolution of Fear , Reconciliation for the Dead and Absolution all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Telegraph Thriller of the Year. Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen outdoorsman, conservation volunteer, and lives in Western Australia.
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