#BlogTour - Notes From the Burning Age by Claire North

From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future.

Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age - a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded, so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated.

But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten everything he once held dear, his life will be turned upside down. Torn between friendship and faith, Ven must decide how far he's willing to go to save this new world, and how much he is willing to lose.

Notes from the Burning Age is the remarkable and captivating new novel from the award-winning Claire North that puts dystopian fiction in a whole new light.

NOTES FROM THE BURNING AGE is a thrilling story of future dystopia, a warning about global warming and man’s need for war, a lament that it may be too late for change and that we have already sown the seeds for the events in the novel, all of these… Like Claire North’s previous novel, THE PURSUIT OF WILLIAM ABBEY, the story can be read on many levels, and the more you think about it, the more you have to think about it.

The story is told by Ven, a former holy man, in a world devastated by climate change and the industry which led to it, now caught between his former life in Temple and The Brotherhood, a revolutionary organisation who believe that man should once again tame the planet and exploit her resources to humanity’s ‘benefit’… 

“The Burning Age was too short-sighted. We shaped the world; built towers, seeded the sky, dug the earth, walked on the moon, built wonders and cured diseases. We waged wars, drained seas, built palaces in the desert. But we consumed too much. Ran too fast. … We were nearly wiped out, the peoples scattered to the furthest corners by deserts and storms. This time, we will do better. Our mistake was thinking that the fruits of man’s Labour must be shared with all. Now we know it is only for the few to lead, wisely and well.”

So speaks one character, and it is impossible to read without hearing similar sentiments from current politicians the world over, those who refuse to accept the damage human beings are doing to the planet, those who believe a trendy pledge to work towards carbon neutrality is enough. The Burning Age is now.

NOTES FROM THE BURNING AGE is as thought provoking as it is entertaining. Like any previous Claire North novel I have read, it is a book that defies genre. It is an incredible novel which deserves, almost demands, to be read more than once. It is beautiful and horrifying, hopeful and heartbreaking, the writing is stunningly good. I cannot recommend this enough.

Thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers @Tr4cyF3nt0n, Orbit Books @orbitbooks and, of course, Claire North @ClaireNorth42 for the opportunity to share in the BlogTour.