Review: Quickly becoming an Important Name in Sci-Fi
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 23, 2013
If I went to sleep for nine years like the main character, Jed, does in "Pennsylvania" to awaken up to find Michael Bunker dominating bestseller lists, I wouldn't be surprised. As I read Pennsylvania, I was struck by reminders to so many standard-bearers in the sci-fi field. Asimov. Heinlein. Bova. Scalzi.With each new thing I read by Mr. Bunker I find myself asking why I haven't read it earlier. The same was true with Pennsylvania. I first purchased it over a week earlier, but just finished it tonight. It was better than I was even hoping for.In the story, we follow Jed, an Amish (or Plain Folk) living in the future where people have "Internet in their heads" and tracking chips in their bodies. As we follow his journey to a new world where he will help establish a new Amish community, we see a person who doesn't fit in. In the society that has overfilled their current plant, Jed is a throwback to a simpler time that most don't understand. His simplicity sets him apart from everyone he comes into contact with and even the standard technology of the time confuses him. We are Jed and are forced into this new world and are just as confused as he is.Along the way, he meets Dawn, a woman who may or may not have Jed's best interests at heart and Jerry. The reader is immediately made wary of nearly everyone in the story, just as Jed should be but his innocence lends him to trust most of his fellow man instead.The book takes Jed on a journey he didn't expect and I am very much looking forward to reading Book 2.