Bookworm Speaks!- The Fog Diver Review
Bookworm Speaks!
The Fog Diver
by Joel Ross
****
The Story: Once the Fog started rising, the earth was covered with a deadly white mist until nothing remained but the mountaintops. Now humanity clings to its highest peaks, called the Rooftop, where the wealthy Five Families rule over the lower slopes and floating junkyards.
Thirteen-year-old Chess and his friends Hazel, Bea, and Swedish sail their rickety air raft over the deadly Fog, scavenging the ruins for anything they can sell to survive. But now survival isn't enough. They must risk everything to get to the miraculous city of Port Oro, the only place where their beloved Mrs. E can be cured of fogsickness. Yet the ruthless Lord Kodoc is hot on their trail, for Chess has a precious secret, one that Kodoc is desperate to use against him. Now Chess will face any danger to protect his friends, even if it means confronting what he fears the most.
The Review:
The most memorable aspect of this book is the world that that the author builds. It takes place in the future where air pollution was choking the life out of the world so they tried to use nanotechnology to fix it. Guess what happens next! It gets out of hand and the world is destroyed and the survivors are forced to congregate on mountain tops.
Similar to the Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve, while this technically is a post-apocalyptic tale, there a great many steampunk elements: Airships, goggles, brass pistons, all that good stuff. Throughout the text we are given references to the technological expertise of the past age and we see that their original functions have passed from memory. The television or teevee is regarded as an altar that the people of the past worshipped. Not too different from today! There is also a reference to iPads but now they are used as decorative objects.
Turn to any news source and one will probably find a story about the latest gadget or the dawn of space-age nano tube technology. That is all well and good but if the end of the world we know were to dawn those things will quickly fall away and it will be back to leather, steel, and gears.
Nothing like the basics.
The passing of time is also ingeniously introduced through the dialogue and slang used by the main characters. Again, similar to the Mortal Engines, present day terms have become muddled and misidentified in the new world. Dairy Queen and Burger King are regarded as religious icons. Spelling Bees and Hello Kitties are regarded as real animals from myth.
Our present day culture is so immersive that one can fall prey to the illusion of perpetuity but history has shown that once the infrastructure breaks down and generations who remember original purposes pass, the once ubiquitous cultural norms break down. While most likely played for laughs, it is a commentary on the transient nature of things and also an interesting way at how quirky the world after the world will be.
As ingenious as the setting is, the story does fall prey to plot elements that can seem very familiar to readers of this genre. The protagonist, Chess, follows many familiar tropes: The orphaned, teenaged protagonist with the special ability that makes him very valuable and pursued by the evil overlords. Sounds quite familiar to any patron of YA fiction.
Aside from the that hiccup, the colorful cast of characters is extremely entertaining and provide the heart of the story. Major Kudos to the author for making the captain of the airship, Hazel, a dark skinned woman. Its probably counterproductive to make such a big deal, but it deserves credit. The other cast of characters is very diverse and provides a lot character.
Swedish is the tough pilot of the ship and serves as the muscle of the crew while in port.
Bea is the young mechanic who is very innocent and loves stories (flawed ones) about the world that came before. Something Bookworm has noticed is how in a lot of fiction, the engineer is always a perky, young girl a’ la Firefly. Bookworm does not see anything wrong with that mind you, but it risks becoming cliched. Writers need to watch out for this.
What also needs to be watched out for is how in some parts the book tends to drag, mostly because the character’s suffer a little too much. They experience a few to many setbacks and it starts to get a little dull, even between the thrilling action scenes. (Very well crafted ones at that). They do a lot of things but seem to make very little headway. Suffering is a critical part of any character development but there’s a fine line between inflicting suffering on your character and making them the living incarnation of Murphy’s Law.
Final Verdict: The Fog Diver is a wonderful book with a novel look at the future and a stunningly crafted setting. What is very satisfying is that while this book will most likely be the first in a series, it ends on a note that wraps things up satisfactory. It does not fall victim to sequel bait, as in ending on cliffhanger. So, if ultimately there is no new book, which Bookworm hopes there is, it was wrapped up nicely.
Four out of Five Stars.
****
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