Glory (The Dust Chronicles, Book Three)

by Maureen McGowan

Skyscape

978-1477817261

312 pp.

Ages 13+

June 2014

Please read this review only if you've already read Deviants and Compliance, Books One and Two respectively, in Maureen McGowan's The Dust Chronicles.  I'd hate for you to miss out on the twists and turns of the plot that have led the way to Glory.

Glory Solis has experienced quite a trajectory from her dismal life in Haven hiding her brother Drake's deviance as well as her own, and believing that their father Hector had murdered their mother before he was expunged to outside Haven, ostensibly to attempt to survive attacks by Shredders.

Glory, her best friend Jayma and Glory's former dating partner Cal have now joined Drake and Hector in Concord, having escaped the clutches of the evil Mrs. Kalin, who uses mind control to manipulate the masses.  But, although Burn, the young Freedom Army (FA) fighter with whom Glory is romantically entangled, has helped them escape, his apprehension about hurting her when his deviance arises is pulling them apart.

A well-orchestrated Shredder attack on Concord, when Rolph and the FA are away, has Glory suspecting Mrs. Kalin, even more so when she taps into the mind of a female Shredder.  This Shredder, who Glory hides away in a concealed cellar to limit her access to Dust, had been a Haven employee before entering Hospital, Mrs. Kalin's domain, and then sent out to

"Find the girl.  Bring the girl.  The President needs the girl." (pg. 77)

While the FA works at forming treaties with another Outside community before launching its ultimate attack on Haven, Glory's focus is on finding her missing father; resolving her attractions to both Burn and Cal; helping the female Shredder, Caroline, get off the Dust; and easing Burn's conviction that he is a monster, having been abandoned by his family for this reason. Add the hostility of the revenge-seeking Zina, a long-lost Shredder relative, Jayma's newly-found Deviance (or gift), and the death of a significant character, and Maureen McGowan has brilliantly composed a spectacular conclusion to The Dust Chronicles. The writing is tight, the subplots intricate, and the resolution gratifying.

But, beyond the story, I think the success of Glory and the entire series is the flawed nature of the characters.  Regardless of any deviances, they are imperfect, making both poor and better choices; conflicted by what they see or hear and what they feel; readily jumping to conclusions, often incorrectly; and continuing to try to resolve situations well. And they don't know in whom to place their trust. Trust is a very fragile commodity.

In a dystopian world in which time is measured relative to the coming of the Dust–BTD represents "before the Dust"–perspective and perceptions are flawed, based on limited communications and movement, as well as wholesale propaganda about the Dust and the ensuing social hierarchy.  It's scary to see how easily a dystopian world arises after a cataclysmic event.  (This is especially frightening when I consider the current climatic evidence of global warming.)  And, even though there are supernatural elements that wouldn't correspond to anything in our world, it is reassuring to know that there are those  who care about the welfare of others, first and foremost, and work towards ameliorating prejudices, addictions, and hierarchies that hide greed and aggression.  The people of Haven, Concord, Houston, and Fort Huron are too realistic to be discounted but Maureen McGowan presents both possibilities (e.g., mind control) and impossibilities (e.g., displaying protective scales) to disquiet and reassure the reader.  Couple that with an ingenious plot and a little romance, and that's a hefty accomplishment.  

New covers for the entire Dust Chronicles

Maureen McGowan will be reading at this year's Eden Mills Writers' Festival. Come out on September 14, 2014 to meet Maureen McGowan and other youngCanLit authors.  It's always a great time!

Compliance (The Dust Chronicles, Book Two)

Written by Maureen McGowan

Skyscape

978-1-1477816530

378 pp.

Ages 12+

June, 2013

In Deviants (reviewed here on January 6), Glory Solis had made the escape from their enclosed community of Haven with the help of the enigmatic but alluring Burn.  Having found safety for her Deviant brother Drake at the Settlement where her father, long thought dead, lives, Glory has returned from the Outside to Haven as an undercover agent for the Freedom Army to rescue other Deviants from inside. 

Her return has been accepted on the premise that she had been kidnapped by a Deviant and cannot remember her painful experiences at his hands.  In fact, Mr. Belando, the Junior VP of Compliance, has had Glory placed in Compliance Officer Training (COT), believing her kidnapping may give her insight into Deviants, particularly those conspiring against Management and launching terrorist attacks prior to the President's Birthday. 

So, by day, she participates in Comp training, along with her HR department-sanctioned dating partner, Cal, for whom she has conflicting feelings after being with Burn, and enduring the harassment of their Recruiting Captain, Larsson, and fellow classmates.  At night, she searches out Deviants to hand off for transport to the Settlement.  But everything changes when she learns from Burn that her regular contact for transport, Clayton, was killed along with a young Deviant, and that he blames her.  Determined to make things as right as she can, Glory searches for an elusive Deviant named Adele Parry.

Meanwhile, with Cal continuing to cover for her and protect her regularly against any harassment, Glory confides in him about her work for Mr. Belando and a suspected mole in COT.  Everything becomes even more complicated when Cal's brother Scout is seriously injured and video shows Burn loosening the bolts on their scaffolding!  With Scout "going to the Hospital" which many believe is a euphemism for execution, Cal and Scout's dating partner, Jayma, are distraught, unlike Glory who has been reassured by Mrs. Kalin, the VP of Health and Safety, who has taken a special maternal interest in Glory, that the Hospital is perfectly safe.

Whereas Deviants emphasized the false premises upon which Haven has been established and the journey from Haven to the Settlement, Compliance underscores the role of trust in moving the plot forward.  Nobody seems to trust Deviants. Deviants have valid reasons not to trust others, knowing their inevitable fate is being expunged to the Outside and attacked by Shredders.  Glory is confused by the trust she has for Cal, though he is a Comp Recruit, and for Burn, whose tenderness has been replaced by nastiness.  Who to trust now?  And what of Mrs. Kalin with whom Glory feels safest?  Or Jayma who has always been her best friend but may not accept Glory's Deviance?  But as Glory tells a young Deviant she is rescuing,

"I figured out that it's one thing to be cautious and another to never trust anyone." (pg. 7)

Maureen McGowan has topped the uneasiness of Deviants' dystopian story with Compliance's psychological tension, as neither Glory nor the reader ever has any indication whom to trust.  Moreover, trust is an ephemeral concept, appropriate in one situation and not in another.  Glory's strength in continuing to be fair and non-threatening i.e., harnessing her own Deviance just exacerbates the reader's heart-stopping trepidation each time she interacts with someone, friend or foe, Deviant or not.  While Maureen McGowan does relieve some of the reader's tension at Compliance's ending, it's not quite resolved for Glory, whose confusion is now compounded with the convergence of her two worlds, previously separated by space and time.  It's inevitable that Book Three of The Dust Chronicles will extend Compliance's gripping adventure but it's a relief to know that there will be some respite from the tension by way of the unavoidable amorous interludes Glory will share, hopeful of alleviating some confusion.

What Happened to Serenity?

by PJ Sarah Collins
Red Deer Press
978-0-889954-53-3
222 pp.
Ages 12-15
2011

Nominated for the 2012 Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy, the first year this book prize is being presented, What Happened to Serenity? by PJ Sarah Collins could have been nominated for the Mystery Award as its title suggests.  But that brilliant title alludes to more than the disappearance of Serenity, the younger sister of our protagonist's best friend.  Serenity also seems to be missing from the Community in which fifteen-year-old Katherine and her family live, under the administration of Father.  And one of the key reasons for the distress in Katherine's life is the strict rule, according to the Manifesto, that only Father is allowed to ask questions.  For all other Brothers and Sisters in the Community, it is considered rude to question - anything.  But Katherine, who has great difficulty rephrasing her questions into statements, wants to know, "What Happened to Serenity?"

After the Ecological Revolution of 1979, Father had brought one hundred abandoned babies and fifty Aunts and Uncles to the safety of Community.  Beyond the borders, the environment is poor and unstable, the water irradiated, the air poison. Now in 2021, the Community adheres to the strict dictates for attaining a perfect society.  Since colour is reflective of selfish individualism, Community is Brown, everywhere.  Life Roles are distributed based on compliance and performance.  And no questioning is allowed.  A sense of peacefulness and calm is only a click away on the Remote.

But Katherine cannot reconcile what she is told and what she observes, especially after discovering a note with "the words that changed my life." (pg. 70)

Everything is not as it seems. 
I've seen the outside come  
Through the sky.      (pg. 7)

When her snooping reveals documents with her family's "Retinal Scan Weekly Diagnostic Informational Scores", notes about a recent medical visit, and a shipments and inventory schedule, Katherine is determined to break the rules to ensure the safety of her family and to see beyond the Community.

The reader will not be prepared for the about-face that What Happened to Serenity? takes.  And though I thought that the ease with which Katherine gets support from Paul seemed somewhat contrived, PJ Sarah Collins ensures that Katherine's interactions with the outsiders are not all promising; in fact, too soon Katherine will be questioning her actions.

"I have let the bear into their home and it will destroy everything in its wide-angle view." (pg. 211)

What Happened to Serenity? is a title I will add promptly to my #CanLitChoices alternatives for The Giver.  It is a perfect youngCanLit example of a dystopian story in which the themes of courage, responsibility, oppression and intolerance, authority and power, and community are interwoven into a powerful plot embedded with real characters who all believe that what they are doing is right.  It's unfortunate that those with the power over others do not realize that they alone have doomed their utopia to become what it is - dysfunctional.  What Happened to Serenity? is a cautionary tale worthy of reading as well as heeding.