Allegra Hyde

I wanted to like it more than I did, as it commonly happens with cli-fi. It is probably because I want a book of this kind to be relevant, talked about, used for inspiration - a literary manifesto. Eleutheria is not it.

It is an attempted cautionary tale about the dissonance between the perceived authority and "true believers". It is a story about blind trust in people, but also persistence and instilling belief by setting an example.

There are many beautiful passages in this novel. I highlighted quite a few of them. The sense of the planet dying was palpable throughout the book.

However, somewhere around the 60% mark, I wanted to DNF it. I pushed through only to see what will happen, but I wasn't nearly as invested as I expected to be. The end was interesting enough for me to be glad I finished it, but it was still a disappointment. The characters are not well developed or very interesting, save for Willa, and even she doesn't grow very much either.
I felt the message about activism was somewhat muddled and world-building was quite weak, especially politically.

This would probably make a solid film with some rewrites and good actors.… (més)

Allegra Hyde's debut story collection, OF THIS NEW WORLD, is a clever mix of the dystopian, utopian, feminist, and futuristic fantasy, with generous dollops of tongue-in-cheek humor thrown in here and there. From the first story, "After the Beginning," with its snarky feminist take of Eve doing all the work while Adam lies around feeling sorry for himself following their expulsion from the Garden, to the final story, "Americans on Mars!," portraying a carefully chosen colony of 'breeders' on the red planet, Hyde pulls her seemingly disparate tales together under an umbrella of wishing and hoping for - and maybe even experiencing - a better world with better lives.

In "VFW Post 1492" Hyde gives us a maimed veteran of the Iraq war visiting the local VFW (with a post number reminding us of the year Columbus first set foot in the New World) and finding "something airtight about the room ... As if even time is trapped there." A sealed refuge for the veterans gathered there.

Or in "Delight" a peep into a perfect (trademarked) community, with a narrator who proposes "a BigWhitePicketFence" be built around the town, a la the Trump BigWall between the U.S. and Mexico, "sealing our borders and protecting our Bright'N'ShiningFuture ... this wall that is too thick to punch through, too deep to tunnel under, and, most importantly, TooTallToSeeOut."

There are thirteen stories here, and they are all clever, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and yes, they are all loosely tied together by that "new world" theme. Hyde is a good writer. In fact "clever" is the word that most often came to mind as I read these brief tales. Sadly, "clever" just doesn't do it for me. While I admire a facility with the language and a witty phrase as much as the next person, I prefer some substance to my fiction, some characters that stay with you after you close the book. This is pretty thin stuff. Hence, I suppose, my ho-hum reaction. I would call this book "an entertainment, " but hardly serious fiction. (three and a half stars)

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (més)