Title: The Summer Prince
Author: Alaya Dawn Johnson
Publisher: Arthur A Levine Books
Rating: WORTHY!
This is a novel in four parts, each named after one of the four seasons, but since the bulk of Brasil, where the novel is set, is south of the equator, you might find yourself surprised that the first date mentioned in the 'Summer' section' is December 25th! Cool! Or rather, hot! It's naturally, therefore, written with a Brazilian influence, and it's set in the future, with a feisty female protagonist; gets off to a slow start, but it makes for really engrossing reading. There are no tropes in this novel!
Several hundred years after Earth was abused chronically by a nuclear war, small remnants of humanity manage to survive in isolated pockets around the earth. Some of these reside in a gigantic ten-storey pyramid on the coast of Brazil The society is (quite literally) highly stratified, with a queen on the top floor and the working class on the bottom, cultivating bacteria to provide energy for the rest of the pyramid. The society is matriarchal, with a queen nominated every five years by an elected "Summer King" who has his throat cut at the end of his term and nominates the new queen quite literally with his dying breath. The current queen was so nominated with a bloody hand print on her stomach. The society is also technophobic in this city (not so elsewhere), Although they are far more technically advanced than we are - they just don't like people modifying their body. Nor do they believe in improving the technology used to keep their amazing city in tip-top shape.
The new summer king is proving to be a rebel, because he comes from the bottom tier and is adored by the majority of the female portion of the wakas (the young of society), and feared somewhat by the old of society (the grandes). The politicians are nearly all female, called aunties, although there is a handful of uncles. June is the sixteen-year-old step child of one auntie; she's an artist and also a rebel. Her gay friend Gil strikes up an intimate relationship with the new king and through him, June gets involved with this king in staging a huge and rebellious art project which she hopes will win her an award. The End.
Just kidding! So June and Enki progress strongly with their plan to make her art project all about lighting up four rather mountainous islands out in the ocean off the coast of their city. As they watch their project come to fruition, Enki, who has been hugely modded, gets some sort of warning from the city that it is in trouble; that there is going to be an accident. When the two of them get ashore trying to warn of this impending disaster, Enki is taken into custody, and June escapes, eventually forcing her way into a meeting of the aunties, trying to warn them of the disaster that's coming. They find it hard to believe her, but she broadcasts the warning via the ubiquitous cam-bots to the whole city, and when the disaster happens, but people are saved from it because of her warning, she becomes a huge celebrity. Do we detect the rigid foundations of this society starting to tremble?
June begins to grow noticeably in and small but perfectly natural ways. She starts coming into her own as the novel starts down the home slope, but another disaster occurs as the technophiles revolt against the anti-tech stance of th aunties and two wakes are shot by a high tech nano gun. It was an auntie who was directly responsible for setting up the situation which led to their death, but she isn't brought to justice even though June manages to learn her name and report it to the queen. The queen contacts June to let her know she will have a good chance of winning the art competition if she gets in line with the queen's wishes, and June amazingly, and disgustingly, sells out to the queen - and immediately regrets it.
So the story progresses with Enki's remaining days growing fewer and ever fewer in number, and June cooking up yet another rebellious art project which turns out to be nothing less than an escape from the city, with June and Enki busting loose and heading to Salvador, which is where Enki initially came from. Salvador contains the secret of Enki's mom's success in getting him into the city in the first place, and June discovers what that is right before the two of them are captured and taken back to the city.
I'm not gong to tell you what happens after that, but finally one of my infamously astray predictions actually proved out for once! I think this story is amazing - well written, powerful, devoid completely of cheesy romance and YA bullshit angst, and best of all, NO PROLOGUE! I fully recommend this one - but only if you're honestly a serious connoisseur of engagingly well-written fiction.
