Rating: 4/5
Find some nice river or meadow sounds record and let it accompany you as you open this book. A dystopian future with a bit of hope awaits you.
Rylla McCracken dreams of escaping her family’s trailer in the Dust States to go to college, but on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, her mother demands she drop out of school to work for Lockburn chemical refinery instead. When Rylla learns Lockburn is planning to dam the Guadalupe River-the last flowing water in Texas-she defies her mother to protest in the state capital. The protest ends in disaster, but her ensuing viral infamy gains Rylla an acceptance to the mysterious Wingates University.
At Wingates, Rylla befriends a diverse group of students, all working on new technologies to save the planet. Besides mountains of homework, Rylla struggles with guilt for leaving her brother behind in the Dust, where tensions with the Lush States are escalating towards civil war. Succeeding at Wingates seems like Rylla’s best chance to help her family, until she uncovers a terrible secret about the school’s billionaire backers. Now, Rylla and her friends are in a race against the rich to reclaim the world-altering technology they’ve developed-before it’s too late.
Blurb of Seeds for the Swarm by Sim Kern
The whole novel flows in a crisp writing style and there is no space for too descriptive or boring pages. The language resembles one of Rylla’s favorite creatures. The words jump like insects and carefully push the plot from the start to the ending.
A wast and divided world opens in front of the readers and an engaging and distinct set of characters promptly introduce the biggest problem humanity faces: life’s end on the planet. The story takes place in many locations that exist in our current time and reality. But they are much more different in the fictional future. That might not be that fictional. Various future problems bubbling under our feet today bloom in ugly flowers in this book. It is no longer possible to ignore the threat of climate change. Too many parts of the world simply cannot be inhabited any longer. Water rations for whole cities, lack of food, plastic pollution, huge and complicated aftermaths of war, scientific experiments, or nuclear pollution create the characters’ mundane daily reality. Again, humor and a dead-serious tone mix well. This is a perfect book for young adults. The scope of world problems this book touches is truly huge, yet they emerge from a very engaging story and this book can inspire young people to follow their favorite characters, study hard, treat our planet better, and try to “save the world” as well. Wingates is a bit like tech Hogwarts. The prestigious school is full of charms and unbelievable opportunities. But it also hides a few monsters and ugly secrets.
The future technology is seamlessly inserted into the story in a natural way. The various technological wonders are both glitchy and highly efficient. The glitches are a source of fun, helping the reader bond with the characters, and feel at home in this fictional world. And the breathtaking technology, like artificial bodies for medicine, or death-bringing war robots, give the plot the proper sci-fi punch, like fresh jalapenos on a pizza.
Different nations, cultures, and customs also fused into a colorful and well-working society. The humans, like the technology, surprise, and charm the readers with many of humanity’s imperfections and displays of the best human brain genius. The major characters display all, the good and the bad. And every character is well-crafted and has their own specific history and goals. Even the characters that could be accused of selfishness or a false sense of self-importance and generally could fall into the category of a villain earn the reader’s understanding and even a bit of sympathy. Other characters, looking like heroes, can surprise with a few nasty intentions.
Only two things made me lower the book’s rating. The events in the first half of the book happen in a rather annoying manner when one coincidence follows another one for the plot purposes. The characters happen to witness things or find out something in a chain of quick unbelievable events that are hammered together and clearly designed for nothing else than quick plot jumps. These events can, of course, happen in the story without a problem. But I would welcome natural dividers that would make the plot feel like the real life. A few short sentences about the characters spending a few days doing mundane tasks, or them stumbling upon an important document only after one sentence describing how they got through other, not that important, files, would reduce the chain of lucky coincidences.
Rylla is a very strong character. She has a powerful drive to save her beloved home. She has her fears and weaknesses, but she struggles on. She is afraid but acts. Those are great qualities of the main character. But she made mistakes or rushed decisions too often for my tolerance. Sometimes she was simply insufferable. Of course, she needs to deal with serious family problems, find her way in a new and demanding school, and face the end of the world anxiety. Her biggest personal failure when she almost loses herself in her troubles and her friends need to help her recover are not the target of this criticism. But the rest annoyed me. But I still like her 🙂
Glenn's Nest 