Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Book review of Jason Vanhef’s Engines of the Broken World


This book is an exercise in the study of minimalist characters.  They are quite a simple people because they are the last people.  The protagonist is not even aware of what a machine looks like; they live in such a simple world.  The last war had rid the world of machines from what the book says. 
The mother dies and yet, the girl, Merciful, hears her dead mother singing to her and hears her move.  Gospel, her brother, looks over all of it, at first.  The dog or ‘it’ avoids the mother.  His hackles raise or he cowers.  The mother grabs the girl and speaks to her of a machine calling in the fog that will bring about their deaths.  They are the last people.  This girl who does not even know what a machine looks like must then find this machine and smash it to call off the fog. 
The fog is a strangely dense entity that is quickly approaching their small community.  Jenny Gone is a young woman that is found without an ear or arm on his left side(the side that went into the fog).  The effects of the fog slowly spread and bring the woman into nothingness until it reaches her heart and kills her.

The question is whether the possessed body of her mother is telling the truth or whether a mechanical animal is telling the truth.  What is more important?  What choice will she make?  Merciful can either kill the Minister machine and stop the apocalypse or she can kill the possessed bodies in the house.  A true test of character within a deeply spiritual and turning book that makes the reader wonder what they would do.

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