I want my friend who’s not so into sci-fi to read it, because the driving force of the novel is how the characters deal with the age they’re in. I want to give it to my astrophysics-major friend, because Karen Thompson Walker actually consulted an astrophysicist to make sure the novel’s scientific developments made sense. That is Walker’s greatest triumph-the novel’s utter realness.ĭespite some things feeling like they might not have reached their full potential, there are so many people I want to share this novel with. Julia at 11 years old is excessively shy and extraordinarily ordinary in a way, but this narration from such an ordinary perspective makes her story all the more relatable and real. This allows for some interesting and haunting moments of foreshadowing. The novel is narrated by an older, nostalgic Julia, in first-person from a future perspective. The science-fiction premise drives the story as much as its characters.Īrguably, most of the characters are somewhat underwhelming. Walker succeeds in balancing what I’ll call world building-her descriptions of this unique time and place-with the microcosm of her characters’ world. The slowing affects their lives in different ways, but it affects everything nonetheless.
Her father is a doctor, her mother a drama teacher. Can humans’ circadian rhythms adapt? How much longer until humans can no longer live on Earth? Scientists and ordinary people alike worry how much more sunlight or darkness their crops can handle in one sitting before they can no longer live on this planet. The clocks are entirely off from sunlit and nighttime hours, forcing people to choose between “clock time” and “real time”. Walker speculates (hence, speculative fiction) what would happen if the earth’s rotation was altered. It’s a look into the lives of 11-year-old Julia and her family during “the slowing”-due to unknown causes, the earth’s rotation has shifted, and the days are getting longer. The Age of Miracles, a speculative fiction coming-of age-story, is Karen Thompson Walker’s debut novel.
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