Just Finished Reading: Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich (FP: 2017) [337pp] 

The News was not good. Scientists around the world struggled to understand exactly what was going on and they were failing. From what they could discern, for unknown reasons, the process of Evolution had stopped and was, indeed, at least in some cases going into reverse. Plants and animals where no longer breeding ‘true’ and the resulting offspring was increasingly populating the world. What was worse, at least from a human perspective, was the fact that food crops were failing across the planet. The world was teetering on the edge of famine and chaos. All of this was background noise to Cedar Hawk Songmaker who had much bigger fish to fry. She was four months pregnant and had just been given the contact details of her birth mother on the Ojibwe reservation. Wanting to know her real roots before the baby is born Cedar is determined to travel to see her mother and finally know why she was given up for adoption. Meanwhile the country is falling apart and a pregnant woman, especially if they are carrying a normal baby, is a very valuable asset indeed to anyone who can hold her. 

To be honest I picked this up almost exclusively because of the title. Reading the blurb regarding a collapse of society, weird biological happenings and a strong Native American theme made me take it home... where it rested in a pile of books for EIGHT years.... [lol] 

Anyway, it’s read now... My overall reaction is quite mixed. The writing is actually very good if a little slow in places. This is the author’s 16th book so she should be pretty good by this stage! Characterisation throughout is very good and the main character is totally believable in her actions and motivations. Her personal philosophy is quite messed up – just like normal people – with a mixture of half understood Native American reading, Catholicism and her adoptive parents Western-styled Buddhism. Other characters – especially both of her families (full of other messy/realistic complications) are also very well drawn and interesting. The societal/political collapse is, as is usually the case, a little overblown but at least the adaptation to the new conditions takes months rather than moments which makes it somewhat more believable. The inevitable ‘resistance’ is also quite well done. 

Two things downgraded the book from a recommended to a reasonable. The first is the underlying ‘science’ part of the Science Fiction label. It’s complete nonsense. As Evolution doesn’t have a direction or a purpose it can’t change direction or go into ‘reverse’. That’s not how it works. So, less Science Fiction more Fantasy in that regard. The only other issue I had with the narrative was the ending which essentially fizzled out over the last 4-5 pages. I was less than impressed by that. I don’t need everything to be wrapped up into a nice, neat bow, but I do need something. Overall, this was more than saved by the quality of the writing which I enjoyed a great deal. The author has penned a great deal more – though not SF – around her own Native American heritage and history and I’ll keep my eyes open for them should I come across them in my travels. As stated before, reasonable.