Kraken Calling

March 15, 2022
McBay intercuts two near-future timelines to illustrate the consequences of climate change complacency. In 2028, despite a worldwide increase in crop failures, disease outbreaks, and natural disasters, the American government begins investing billions in the Industrial Revitalization Initiative--an effort to boost fuel production and job creation by circumventing the "crippling environmental and zoning legislation" hampering the economy. Grassroots groups and radical activist cells mount independent campaigns to prevent IRI projects from poisoning the water, soil, and air only to see their efforts quashed by lawsuits and police raids. Two decades later, in 2051, the United States is no more. Several Indigenous communities and former states are now sovereign, the West Coast is a Chinese Protectorate, and portions of the Northeast and Great Lakes region are controlled by the York Emergency Authority--a fascist regime that pillages the land and steals from the poor to keep loyalists warm and fed. Dissenters are transferred to triage camps, where they're enslaved, tortured, or experimented upon, so though opposition exists, revolution seems impossible. Farmers and homesteaders living outside Authority territory generally remain uninvolved to avoid trouble, but then rumors surface regarding YEA expansion through military invasion, forcing them to choose sides. Murky worldbuilding and an overlarge cast prolong the book's setup and occasionally distract from the intricate (if heavy-handed) plot; on the balance, though, McBay's passion combined with the tale's escalating stakes and adrenaline-fueled conflict will reel in readers and hold them rapt. An urgent call to action cloaked in a sprawling dystopian debut.

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May 20, 2022
Political and climate activist McBay makes his fiction debut with this dystopia exploring a resistance movement via two alternating time lines. In 2028, disparate activist groups both clash and collaborate in an attempt to stem the tides of climate change and fascism. In 2051, the failures of the previous generation have allowed a fascist pseudo-government to come to power, and an underground resistance is the only hope of ending the oppression of the York Emergency Authority and its "triage" system. A large cast of characters allows McBay to explore many facets of his fictional social movement, including how and why people become involved and how disagreements over tactics rattle alliances, but it also results in an occasionally confusing reading experience, especially across two time lines with only a small number of characters who overlap. With an almost instructional focus on the inner workings of political resistance, Kraken Calling is both a cautionary tale and an inspiring call to action that will appeal to left-leaning readers seeking to create social change.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.