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3.0 

Notes from the Burning Age

By Claire North
Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

“ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I'VE READ IN RECENT YEARS. THOUGHT PROVOKING, IMAGINATIVE AND PACKS A HELL OF AN EMOTIONAL PUNCH.” —Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time

From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future…

Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age—a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated.

But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten everything he once held dear, his life will be turned upside down. Torn between friendship and faith, Ven must decide how far he's willing to go to save this new world—and how much he is willing to lose.

“A riveting tale of subterfuge and deadly self-indulgence” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) from award-winning author Claire North, Notes from the Burning Age puts dystopian fiction in a whole new light.


Also by Claire North:
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Touch
The Sudden Appearance of Hope
The End of the Day
84K
The Gameshouse
The Pursuit of William Abbey

108 Reviews

3.0
“Objectively it’s an interesting story and concept but the writing style and characterization of the main character made it hard to keep feeling invested”
“This book did not need to be 403 pages long. More than actual substance, it seemed to be filled with lengthy descriptions of the narrator's surroundings. Don't get me wrong, the prose was beautiful, but it got old fast. The author spent so much time describing the condition of the water that she forgot to describe what was happening in the story, making it difficult to keep up with. This was not helped with the fact that the dialogue was impossible to follow, as not a single character had a unique voice. There would be 16-20 lines of dialogue without a single "[character name] said", and I had no way of figuring out who was talking because all of the characters talked in the same way.”
Expressionless Face“Since this is a lower rating for me, let me start out by saying that Claire North’s descriptive writing is beautiful. It was so easy to imagine the scenes playing out in my mind’s eye, especially when she described the Kakuy sightings. I wasn’t super impressed by any of the characters. Ven/Kadri is the main character and the narrator of the story. The narration reminded me of that in The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, which just means it was challenging to read as conversations weren’t written as such but rather as a passing thought by Ven. From the synopsis, you know that he “must decide between friendship and faith.” So, the weird love-interest, situation-ship he finds himself in was my least favorite part. Additionally, the “villain” (Georg), although a shitty human wasn’t super interesting to me because his power grab was a bit too similar to some people in the real world. I’m not sure if this is normal for spy-centric stories, but I was bored for a large part of the beginning. It took way too long to catch my attention. I think I got over halfway before the story actually started to interest me and this probably contributed to my lack of connection to the characters. The last 100 pages or so were what pushed this from a 2- to 2.5-star rating.”
“2.5 stars”

About Claire North

Claire North is a pseudonym for Catherine Webb, who wrote several novels in various genres before publishing her first major work as Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. It was a critically acclaimed success, receiving rave reviews and an Audie nomination, and was included in the Washington Post's Best Books of the Year list. Her novel, The Sudden Appearance of Hope, won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Catherine currently works as a theatre lighting designer and is a fan of big cities, urban magic, Thai food and graffiti-spotting. She lives in London.

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