The Drowned Cities

The world's oceans have risen, flooding the shore line on every continent. Some places are still doing well, others, not so much. Paolo Bacigalupi doesn't explain what got the world in the shape that it's in. His characters have little time to contemplate the why of it - they are struggling moment by moment to survive. The story centers around a place called the Drowned Cities where warlords recruit children for their armies (meat for the grinder) because folks don't seem to live too long under the constant bombardment of war. A new beast has entered the war. A special creature, bred in a lab from the world's most fearsome predators to be a machine of war. It's a creature that is feared and sought after to be a gladiator, then as much more. Mahlia and Mouse are two kids living in the most brutal of environments. Both are orphans, but Mahlia is despised by her community because of her Chinese origins. They only let her exist because she assists the only doctor in town, but they don't hold back their malicious thoughts about the girl. She's a maimed thing, losing a hand to the Army of God, one of the local warlord militias. When a rival army comes into their community while pursuing Tool, the beast, Mouse is recruited into their army against his will and Mahlia makes an alliance with Tool to enter the Drowned Cities and bring Mouse back. Drowned Cities is a brutal tale of senseless war - death and destruction over different ideals and not the betterment of the society that people live in. Paolo Bacigalupi wastes no time in getting the readers attached to the characters. Tool is a brutal war machine, a thing perfectly bred for death and destruction, but he's much more than that. There's an intelligent man within that beast, one with a heart that is ruled by his mind. Mahlia is a spirited girl who has been damaged by the people around her, both physically and emotionally. She's a survivor with a conscience and loyalty to those who have been good to her, but she also wants payback for the wrongs she sees every day. Against impossible odds, she wants things to change. There's a better life out there, and she wants to live it. Amazingly, Mouse seems to be almost care free, living in a man-made hell, but not analyzing things too much. He's a child who is forced to take up arms and do things that his conscience tells him is wrong to fight a cause that he doesn't believe in. Ship Breaker is the predecessor to Drowned Cities. Each can be read separately because the only ground they share is the world setting and the character Tool. Ship Breaker was a fantastic novel and is appropriate for the YA reader - though adults will enjoy it just as much. Drowned Cities might still be a good book for most YA readers, but it's brutal portrayal mindless war gave it more of an adult edge. Of the two books I enjoyed Drowned Cities better, though both books are excellent.

Wow. Few authors can blow me away like Bacigalupi can. After I finished this book, I had to just sort of sit there catching my breath (I felt the same way after finishing Ship Breaker). Bacigalupi can *go there* like no other YA author I've read. This book is brutal and no punches are pulled, but not in a gratuitous way. The violence is real and believable and absolutely necessary to the story. Actually, it IS the story. This is a companion novel to Ship Breaker: America is no longer, and the east-central region is rife with civil war. There are several factions fighting for control, each calling themselves true patriots, but are really just warlords seeking power. Everything about it reminds me of certain areas of Africa, which made it real and extremely uncomfortable, and yet I couldn't stop reading. Mahlia and Mouse have grown up in the Drowned Cities, which is the Washington D.C. area. They knew a short time of Peace when China intervenes in an attempt to end the fighting (and this reminds me of the Middle East). In the end, though, China pulls out and the fighting resumes as though it had never stopped. Ten years isn't long enough to erase animosity and hatred, real or imagined. Any semblance of peace is shattered, and soldiers go where they please, take whatever they want in the name of patriotism, and leave a path of destruction behind them. Mahlia and Mouse learned how to stay out of the soldiers' paths, but then Tool enters their lives. Tool is the only character from Ship Breaker--half man, half animal hybrid of dog, hyena, tiger, and a few other predators. He was built with one purpose in mind, to fight in a war. Mahlia and Tool find an unlikely alliance, and the story delves into themes of loyalty, friendship, family, and being forced into all of the above--like kidnapped children in Africa being forced to fight in a warlord's army. This is explored in full detail, along with the horrors of war, and my heart broke for Mahlia and Mouse. At the same time, I cheered for Tool. In Ship Breaker, he discovers himself as an individual, which goes against his breeding and genetic engineering. In Drowned Cities, Tool discovers that he can have a purpose. He has an amazing revelation: "I have never been defeated, but have I ever won anything?" That really illustrates the difference between avoiding what you don't want and going after what you do want. Tool is such a fantastic character, and I can't wait to see what he'll do next. I am wondering if absolute power will corrupt absolutely. If violence or war isn't your thing, then you won't enjoy Drowned Cities. But if you like stories with vast amounts of depth and emotion, then it's definitely for you. Definitely recommended. To get the full effect of Tool as a character, you should read Ship Breaker first. However, this book can be read on its own. Age appropriateness: the realities of war are up front and center in this book, so it might be too much for younger teens.

Welcome back to Paolo Bacigalupi's dystopic world of our not-so-distant future, a world already familiar to readers of his earlier novels The Windup Girl and Shipbreaker and of some of his short stories, collected in Pump Six And Other Stories. It is the world of Mahlia, a castoff girl left behind by her father when he and the other Chinese peacekeepers gave up on trying to restore sanity in the war zone called the Drowned Cities. It is the world of Mahlia's best friend, Mouse, who saved her when she was fleeing the Drowned Cities and had been captured by soldier-boys who cut off one of her hands and were about to cut off the other. And above all, it is the world of Tool, a "half-man", part human and part wolf, tiger and hyena, a fearsome creature bioengineered for war. Bacigalupi's style is, as always, rivetting and subtle, as can be seen in this section where Tool has captured two soldier-boys after Mahlia has tricked them into following her and she has just picked up a shotgun belonging to one of them: The gun felt solid in her hand, reassuring. Powerful. She could stand tall with a weapon like this. --No wonder soldier boys had so much damn swagger. With a gun under your arm, you walked tall. If she'd had a gun when the soldier boys caught her the first time, everything would have been different. --All her life she'd been ducking and running, always rabbiting, while the coywolv did all the hunting. But with this big old gun, she could stand tall. --The weapon was heavy, but she suddenly felt light, as if the weight of all of her past had suddenly fallen off, like a concrete block, tumbling away. --She grinned at the weapon in her hand. Yeah. She liked this gun, all right. "Brace it against your shoulder when you fire," Tool said. "The kick will bruise you." --"It'll kill, though," she said. "It'll kill good." --"Resist the urge to think that weapon makes you strong." --"It sure don't make me weak." --"Weaker than you think," Tool said. "Resist its swagger." --"I don't swagger." --"Everyone swaggers with a gun. Look at it." --"What about it?" --Mahlia looked down. It seemed fine. Looked clearn. In good condition. Ready. --"It gives you confidence." Tool shook the boys under his arms. "It gave these two confidence as well. And look at them now. From a position of strength to an asset of their enemy, and all it took was confidence. The swagger a gun gives when you're following some harmless crippled girl into the jungle." --Tool suddenly snarled. "Now look at it again!" --Mahlia startled at the force of Tool's words. She looked down at the shotgun. "I am! I am!" --Scrapes and scratches. Heavy black barrel. A wooden stock that had been carved by hand and hammered back on to the main mechanism. --It was painted. Lots of guns were painted, though, and this one wasn't any different. Lots of things on it. Mostly green crosses, for Deepwater faith. The red stars of the Army of God. --"Yeah? What of it?" --It was like every other gun she'd ever seen. Beat-up, but ready for action. --"Look," Tool said again. --Mahlia stared at it, trying to see what Tool saw. --"The paint is chipped," Tool said. --Mahlia glared up at him. So?" --"So. Look." --Sure, some of the paint had chipped off. But there was just more paint underneath. Might have been a couple of Fates Eyes, from the shape of them, under the green crosses. Sure. It could be. Something red, too. Maybe a bit of a white star on a blue background. Maybe a UPF tag... --A cold crawling moved up her spine. Mahlia's breath snagged. --The gun gave her swagger, all right. And it had given their prisoners swagger. --And whoever owned it before that. --And whoever before that. --And before that. --And on and on and on... --She could look at the gun and see the history of hands that held it. Soldier after soldier, making it his own. Covering it with luck symbols and charms, Fates Eyes and crosses and whatever they thought would give them the edge. --And every one of them was dead. --The shotgun didn't care who owned it. It went hand to hand. She was just the latest in a chain that might as well have gone all the way back to the Accelerated Age when people had cities that worked and they didn't shoot at one another all the time. --A lot of hands had held this weapon, and if it had done any of them any good, they probably still would have been holding it, instead of passing it down the line to her. --She shivered, suddenly wondering if she was a dead girl. If just holding the gun made her a ghost. --Tool growled. "You understand, now." Highly, highly recommended.

I really enjoyed "Ship Breaker", as an old welder who has been in some tight spaces on commercial vessels here on the gulf coast the book brought back memories......one of them being how it feels when the invincibility of youth feeling runs head on to the stark reality that a foolish choice could get me killed. Mr. Bacigalupi has the ability to write scenes that build in tension and uncertainty, and the characters he's created are pushed to their physical and mental limits to survive in a post apocalyptic, diminished America. This book started out well for me, with the reappearance of "Tool", and the introduction of Mahlia and Mouse. Not to give away the story, but their bond forged from escaping death and trying to hold on to a shaky semblance of security is going to be the driving force of this story, kids who were forced to grow up by the horrors of a mindless war. After a few chapters, I began to get the feeling that the author was becoming more interested in correlating his story with current issues, especially the partisan rhetoric that has become the daily staple of today's media, both right and left wing. The final chapters left no doubt, as the bad guys became caricatures of right wing villains and the story was completely predictable. I have love for neither party, I think they are both complicit and depend on each other and the rivalry to survive, but I am especially annoyed when I realize a book I'm reading for relaxation and escape begins to take on tones of propaganda for a political ideologue. And that's what happened in this book, to my surprise and disappointment. He can do better, I hope he does.

For what it is. If you're in to the popular 'kids in danger' genre of YA literature, this one is a great read. Admittedly, much like the third Hunger Games book some bits may be a bit much for some kids, but it's not too far beyond the pale. From a sci fi/fantasy standpoint, Bacigalupi has a great and inventive mind for out-there concepts that are at the same time oddly believable. He does a really neat twist on the whole post civilization thing in that it's not post apocalypse, just post the cushy life we enjoy now. On this vein, I would also suggest checking out his other novel The Wind Up Girl, as well as Pump Six, his collection of short stories. They're a bit more adult, but well worth a read.

Ever since reading his story collection Pump Six I have been a great fan of Paolo Bacigalupi and I have purchased each of his books when it was published. As with Ian McDonald recent turn to "young adult" fiction ( Planesrunner and Be My Enemy (Book Two of the Everness Series) , as an adult I have been disappointed to see Bacigalupi writing young adult fiction rather than adult fiction. Although in both cases the quality of the work is not greatly harmed. Drowned Cities is well written, with well drawn characters and a memorable, but dark, future world. The world of Drowned Cities is Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Congo brought to Washington DC and the American South. The rise of the seas has shattered the United States. Rather than investing in armoring their cities, as China has, the Southern United States has degenerated into warlordism with armies of child soldiers. The flooded cities are being mined for their raw materials while the armies fight a nihilistic war over the bones of the dead empire of the United States. For a decade China sent peace keepers to try to help and bring peace to the waring factions. The Chinese humanitarian effort came to an end as China tired of the constant guerilla fighting against their humanitarian effort. When the Chinese leave, they leave behind "castoff" children, one of whom is Mahlia - a half Chinese half "Drown Cities" girl. The story is largely the story of Mahlia and her struggles to live, both physically and spiritually in this dark world of constant war. Like everything Paolo Bacigalupi writes, Drowned Cities is a good book, but it is his darkest work yet. Just like the civil war Africa of Liberia and Sierra Leone, the Drowned Cities world is dark and horrific in many ways. Reading this book I kept thinking "This is young adult literature?" The Drowned Cities world is extremely dark, beyond a dystopian future into the chaos of civil war and child soldiers. While there is no explicit sex in the book, as with all young adult literature, there are frequent mentions of "Nailshed Girls", who work in brothels that service the warring factions. The Drowned Cities world relentlessly exploits people, as soldiers, slave labor or sexual providers. Those who resist or are captured by rival factions are killed in terrible ways. I don't believe in keeping books from children or "young adult" readers, but I don't think that I would give this book as a present to a young teenager. To me this seems like an adult work, but perhaps I am naive about the world of teenagers who play the current generation of ultra-violent video games.

I bought the full book as soon as I reached the end of the 11th chapter. Paolo Bacigalupi is William Gibson of Climate Change. He understands the different facets and is able to lead us through the different challenges a changing climate has on people and time, on cities and structures, on food and communication, on war and peace, on, really, our human condition. I read Ship Breakers (SB) before Drowned Cities (DC), and I am now 1/3 of my way through Windup Girl (WG) and the thread Mr. Bacigalupi draws throughout his world is strong, coherent, and firmly rooted in his own visions. And this is important because the reader can relax into his world, s/he can get comfortable with the world, immerse himself/herself in it, in order to feel the complexity of his characters more deeply. I grew up reading SF and Fantasy. Gibson's Necromancer was my first novel, and it seems like I've been searching for something similar to his world for the past 20 or so years. The Hunger Games (HG) were the last books I read before finding SB. Where HG's were quick and fun (like the movie Speed), they also wear thin after a while (like the movie Speed). SB, DC, and WG are deeper, more serious books that will not leave you alone between reading opportunities. They will keep you up at night turning pages. I am thankful Mr. Bacigaluupi has written these books and I look forward to seeing more from him. I wasn't paid for this review, or to read these books.

Having read Shipbreaker, also by Bacigalupi, I was already familiar with the world in which this novel is set. This novel continues to prove that the dystopian world that the author has created is well thought out. I've read many dystopian novels that don't have a clear world sense of how the dystopian came to be, where it's at on a global scale, and where it is going, but such is not the case for "The Drowned Cities." The world is a frightening place to live in, but it is also realistic enough to make you think about how it applies to the world today. If a dystopian doesn't do that, it isn't worth writing (in my opinion). This book, as the previous, appears to be a stand alone novel; there could be more, but the major conflict of the main characters within the novel is resolved. The ending, somehow, leaves you hopeful for the future even amidst all the sadness and disparity. A strong heroine is presented us and she grows throughout the novel in a satisfying character arc through her interaction with the half-man Tool, who has his own character arc as well. Overall, this book was a fantastic look both into a well thought out dystopian world and a group of well thought out characters who have to deal with that world. We could learn a lot from such characters.

If you're a fan of near-future dystopian speculative YA fiction, this has it all; great characters in believable situations all delivered with a punch in the gut. If you're looking for something to read from your safe place, this isn't it. Bacigalupi delivers that rarest of gifts; a sequel as good as the first book (Shipbreaker).

No es demasiado creible, rápido de leer. Es para pasar el tiempo, demasiado fantástico y poco creible Para pasar el tiempo

Another gripping, rollercoaster ride from Bacigalupi. The second in the Ship Breaker trilogy, with the future world being further sketched out around a dystopian tribal war, child soldiers, new characters and the augment Tool returning as the link to the previous story. The central characters are beautifully developed and I found a real connection with them and the terrible choices they make in a world where life is cheap and cruelty and death is ever present. The character of Tool becomes much more interesting in this book and is clearly setting him up as the focus for the third book in the series - which I'll probably move on to straight away!

Questo è il terzo libro di Bacigalupi che leggo e il secondo di questa serie. Come sempre, il futuro che descrive, e l’enorme abisso della stupidità umana sembra fin troppo vero. Non vedo l’ora di leggere il terzo capitolo della saga.

Arrived on time and in good condition. A good read probably intended for a younger audience. Not quite in the same league as The Wind-up Girl.