Review: Loved this one.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 3, 2011
Selection Event, by Wayne Wightman, is the story of Martin, and his dog Ishi. Martin was in isolation when the Mongolian Influenza Virus hit, and civilization collapsed. Ishi was abandoned at his home when his parents left to die, knowing that Martin would be back for her. Together they explore the New America, where giraffes and hippos roam through suburbia and all the rules of the old world are trampled on by the desperation of life.Selection Event was a great book, with a tight plot that moves along at a comfortable clip, despite the fact that the cast of characters grows throughout the progress of the novel. Martin's character development in his new place in society is believable and compelling. The flashbacks to characters from Martin's past really bring the events of the plague to life, without making the book about the plague. This book is not about the plague, it's about the aftermath, and the book knows that.A couple problems that I have are that the bad guys are ridiculously bad. I knew that this was going to be a problem when we met our first round of bad guys. Some head honcho who controls his minions with heroin, coercion and racism. Oh, and he rapes women, and it's suggested that he also murders children. Yes, Wightman, I get it. He's a bad man.There's also some other problems I have with every person who expresses religious beliefs being insane, or evil. If you happen to get religion, you begin to go insane and begin to do bad things. That was a little disconcerting for a reasonable, reasoning Christian, but I'll give it a pass because hey, what other fundamentalists are you going to find in post-apocalyptic America?I thought that bi-polar disorder was demonstrated really positively, if dramatically, in Diaz. He plays the part of the catalyst in the book. He doesn't change, he simply is, like a force of nature, and sends people to Martin, people to help him and people to challenge him, while he deals with the repercussions of his own untreated bi-polar the only way he knows how, with frenetic movement.