This is the Way the World Ends

James Morrow
This is the Way the World Ends Cover

This is the Way the World Ends

sdlotu
5/23/2024
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This is a wild and unpredictable tale of the end of the world from a nuclear attack and counterattack. The author takes some of the situation very seriously, and at times with oddly comic irony.

Much of it makes little sense in terms of actual reality, as people die, or not, solely depending on whether the author needs that person alive or not, the fatal consequences of the character's actions notwithstanding.

Instead, we are wisked along on a journey to the unscathed Antarctic, where a different sort of people (no spolers) are waiting in judgement on the survivors collected from the US for trial.

For additional fun, the author builds the story around an encounter between Nostradamus and DaVinci centuries earlier, and carries that connection (and the predicted outcome foretold by Nostradamus) to the bitter and paradoxical end.

It is a fast moving, breezy story for the most part, if you can look past the brutal and glib handing of mass death and destruction. That doesn't occupy much of the story, instead, the flight to the South Pole and subsequent trial are the meat of the book.

I've read other Morrow novels. This is a middling effort compared to his other works. If you like his style of writing, you may find it worth your time, but otherwise, it's probably just going to confuse and disappoint.

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