Notes from the Burning Age

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The novel follows Middle-European Ven who is one of a few people of his time to have spotted a Kakuy. He becomes a priest, learns dead languages like English or German to translate the Notes of the Burning Age. Many are forgeries, most contain silly content like WhatsApp conversations, or porn. But here and there are valuable “heretical” information about technology. Ven goes rogue and sells the information outside of his monastery, ends up disgraced. He works as a bartender in the city of Vien at the beautiful river Ube. But human historical memory is tragically short, and the mistakes of past generations are bound to be repeated. The ruling Council government is slowly losing ground electorally and in public opinion to a rival faction called the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood believes in the superiority of humanity over nature and calls for a return to the glory of the Burning Age, kakuy be damned. On the other hand, Georg is a powerful entity in and of himself. He is resourceful, secretive and manipulative. He is a puppet master and most people don’t even know what he is making them do. He is the perfect mafia warlord. The two main characters--Ven and Yue--grew up in the same small village and are united by a shared childhood tragedy. A forest fire claimed the life of Ven’s best friend, Yue’s younger sister. Ven and Yue meet again as adults, when they’re both deeply ensnared in the political and ideological battle between the Council, the Temple, and the Brotherhood.

The book description speaks of Notes From The Burning Age being a post apocalyptic story of humanity trying to find itself, but more than that this is a spy novel. It is first and foremost a spy novel worthy of comparison to the work of John Le Carré as opposed to any post apocalyptic novel I've read. But typical of North that doesn't summarise what the story is either. A riveting tale of subterfuge and deadly self-indulgence” ( Publishers Weekly, starred review) from award-winning author Claire North, Notes from the Burning Agepresents an extraordinary vision of the future that puts dystopian fiction in a whole new light. An impassioned, urgent and compelling new work that burns as bright as the fires of our own burning age. This is not to be missed’ Lavie Tidhar, World Fantasy Award-winning authorWebb was educated at the Godolphin and Latymer School, London, and the London School of Economics. [ citation needed] From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future… Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North is about a utopian society built from the ashes of a burning world. Scholars and archivists of the Temple have long searched and collected artifacts from our present age, preserving the knowledge so it may not fall into the wrong hands. The world has been at peace, keeping these spirits (“kakuy”) at bay. But man is bound to get greedy and want more. There will always be people for whom equality and equity are not enough, people who need praise and power, and that will be the downfall of utopia. Thoughts on Notes from the Burning Age North has created a world that works, that lives and breathes and suffers and dies, and populated it with characters who are all flawed, all broken, and struggling to make something better.

Ven becomes a priest, Yue a politician. Ven learns dead languages and becomes a translator of Burning Age documents and data, is booted from the priesthood for stealing heretical information and selling it, ends up disgraced, working as a bartender in a dive bar in one of the few cities left on earth. Yue rises. Becomes an aide to one of the most powerful members of the Council — the political class trying to hold the ruined world together. One night at the bar, Ven is approached by Georg, a leader of the Brotherhood, who want a return to humanity's primacy and the knowledge of all those things that doomed us in the first place: strip mining, eugenics, sub-prime mortgages and atomic bombs. He wants, ultimately, to kill the Kakuy and free mankind.

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This conflict fuels the action of the book, of those feeling only a few deserve the best of technologies, comforts and opportunities, as exemplified by the Brotherhood, and many others have a strong belief in community, of being mindful of one’s affect on the land and on others. The Burning Age of the title? That's us. That's today. The period of human history when we decided that the earth and everything on it was a resource that could be exploited without consequence, mastered by men and machines and nations that became increasingly insular and increasingly desperate as those resources began to run dry. One of my observations was that for a utopia to function, there still has to be a hierarchy and structure. Everyone had agreed that the Temple had the power to limit the circulation of material. People cannot just live happily and in harmony without standards and law to abide by. While this does not come off as an imbalance of power to someone who has always lived in that world by those very rules, Georg and the Brotherhood saw it as such and are willing to do anything to get a hold of the information being kept from them. Reading Experience Summary But I swear, the thing that hooked me so deep was the simple presence of it all. In Notes North has created a world that works, that lives and breathes and suffers and dies, and populated it with characters who are all flawed, all broken, and struggling to make something better. It felt seamless, like it was written in a day, maybe two, coming out whole and smooth and perfect on the very first try.

We have developed so much in the last few centuries, with advances in medicine and warfare, and it does make sense that knowing how this knowledge may be used, for bad or worse, and having the option to start over, people might not want it to fall in the wrong hands. Ven came from the Temple, and spends years in dialogue with a mastermind of the Brotherhood. Their discussions veer from practicalities to philosophies, with Ven’s acerbic voice taking us through them and a world very different from ours, but sadly the same, as the Brotherhood eagerly takes advantage of unearthed information about old tech. Some technology like solar panels, wind turbines, or information technology have survived. People might have heard of combustion engines, but fear to use them because the Kakuy could wake up from their slumber at any time. Instead, they use bicycles mostly.

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Why didn’t it work for me? I nearly DNFed it after 20% in, because it dragged on and on. I soldiered through, because I loved other works from the author. And indeed, the middle-part was a breathless action plot. Only, that it was too much: Too many recurring situations where I thought “yet another XYZ”. Half of it would have perfectly well transported the needs and situation without giving up anything. The plot really wasn’t driven forward by yet another flight to yet another station. A gripping, utterly involving, dystopian eco-thriller that balances the intimacies of betrayal against global climate collapse’ Daily Mail 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. Prayers are for gifts.They are for blessed things, bestowed with mercy, compassion. They are raised up in exaltation...and cry out for special attention, for the world to be something other than what it is....p214 Notes From The Burning Age is the eighth novel by best-selling, award-winning British author, Claire North. Thirty-one-year-old Ven Marzouki, sometimes Kadri Tarrad, freely admits he is a traitor. He trained to be a priest for the Temple, translating documents in archaic languages salvaged from the Burning Age to be assessed for heresy but, unappreciated for his hard work and expertise, he begins illegally selling classified information. This might be true…

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

Ven survives childhood trauma with permanent scars and an emotional reserve that leaves him feeling always like an observer of life rather then a participant in his life. Yet at crucial times, the horror of early trauma haunts him and requires all his energy to keep any trace of his guilt and terror from showing on the surface. There’s something vast and implacable about the legendary kakuy in this post-apocalyptic world, which is many years after the collapse of the environment, after refugees sought dry, safe land, and after the deaths of millions, possibly billions.