05-18-2021, 10:02 AM
(04-22-2021, 01:18 PM)Greg Wrote: The Trials of Koli by M. R. Carey
This is the second book of the Rampart Trilogy. The first is the Book of Koli which I finished as well. I'm currently chomping my way through Carey's works. His most famous would be The Girl with All the Gifts.
This is another post apocalyptic world dealing with the people living in the ashes of an advanced technological society. Koli is our guide through England after the Unending world, where the environment around Koli is trying to kill him and his fellow citizens. His town of Mythron woods lives like a medieval village with just a few pieces of lost technology still in use. The people who can use the tech get to to tell everyone else what to do. Meanwhile the trees around the town are trying to kill the town. Koli runs afoul of the Rampart, as the users of the tech are called when he finds out that lies about the tech have been told. Koli is forced from the city to start his own adventures.
In the Trials of Koli, we get another narrator as well who is the girl Koli wanted to marry, Spinner. But from Spinner's narration of the events, that was mostly in Koli's mind. Spinner always wanted to marry into the Rampart clan. Koli recounts his story of his quest to get to London to find more tech which doesn't go smoothly. Spinner tells her tale of being in Mythron Rood which also doesn't go smoothly
There is subplot with a trans girl named Cup and how she deals with society. Koli meanwhile has a big relationship with an AI music player that has become more sentient in the process of getting downloads. Both Spinner and Koli meet all sorts of people during their journeys.
Finished “Fall of Koli”; Unusually upbeat for Carey, thank god. Very enjoyable.
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.