A Gift Upone the Shore torrent

SciFi Nove: A Gift Upon the Shore (1990) by M. K. Wren


I lived in a dying golden age, a time of miracles
and mania. Rachel said that one of the most
profound tragedies of human existence is to
live at the end of a golden age—and know it!

In this dazzlingly original, deeply moving novel set in the Pacific Northwest in the near future, the golden age has ended in apocalypse. Nuclear war has unleashed firestorms and the killing cold of nuclear winter. Earthquakes and tidal waves have ravaged the West Coast of America. Desperate, violent looters comb the devastated land. And a horrifying pandemic, lassa fever, lays waste to the remaining human population.

In prose that is taut with excitement, M. K. Wren tells the story of Amarna, a subsistence farm inhabited by two women, which has somehow endured the wreckage of the world.

At the center of the story is Mary Hope, a writer who, with her beloved friend Rachel, a painter, has set out to preserve the precious knowledge of the past by creating a cache of books. Having witnessed the destruction of her daily life and of civilization as she had experienced it, Maryis determined to see that at least some spark of culture survives. Together with Rachel, she sets out to preserve every book they can in what may very well be the last library, the only record of a world that has perished.

But Mary and Rachel are not completely alone. The farm also becomes home to a small band of survivors, the Flock. With their fanatical beliefs, the Flock seek to dominate the spiritual life of Amarna. Mary quietly continues to voice her own views and make peace with the community on one condition: that she be allowed to teach the children, making of them living bearers of the knowledge protected in the precious book vault.

What Mary has not reckoned with is the rigid nature of Miriam, who views books as blasphemous—an evil which threatens the small world which has so precariously survived the devastation. As the conflict between Mary and Miriam divides the community in passion and terror, A Gift Upon the Shore reaches its shattering, spellbinding climax.

Magnificently written, profound in its symbolism, deeply informed by allusions to the Bible, Western literature, and science, A Gift Upon the Shore is an important, timely work of contemporary fiction and a reading experience of unforgettable power and beauty.