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Fish Seeking Bicycle by Kate Cooch (view source)
Revision as of 11:55, 13 February 2019
, 11:55, 13 February 2019no edit summary
This novel is set about a hundred years into the future. The world has been decimated by nuclear conflict and what's left of the old United States is run from Center City. Women run this world and it is very proud of having defeated the old patriarchy. Men must behave appropriately and deferentially at all times and, if they don't, are medicalised to keep their baser instincts under control. And if that doesn't work, they're sent to work camps, away from open society, or even worse: expelled to the wilderness beyond the Central Authority's borders.
Hazel Patel is being brought up by her mother and companion-mother. She wants to become a medical professional but prefers the idea of hands-on work to the safer teaching role her mothers would like. Hazel has always felt somewhat stifled by the overly risk averse environment she has been brought up in. She wants to travel and longs for adventure. In Center City, it seems to Hazel, everything fun is banned on safety grounds and the *''suggestions* '' about behaviour are overly restrictive. But Hazel loves her mother and companion mother and so keeps her most rebellious thoughts to herself...
... until, one day, her mother is murdered and the investigating police counsellor lets slip that Hazel has a real, living father, not a sperm donor like most of her friends. Hazel sets out to find him and the truth about her birth, and the journey will lead her into dangers even her adventurous soul had never contemplated: a prison break, and a journey through the Wilderness in the company of work camp escapees, one of whom believes her to be a Center City spy. Hazel is going to have to learn to take risks and to think on her feet if she is to survive.