Good and bad battle on climate change in John Darnton's 'Burning Sky'
Good guys and bad ones battle over the effects of misguided human interference with climate change in John Darnton's wild new dystopian novel.
Bouncing in time from the near future up through 2092, the ambitious novel follows three generations of a powerful family as they use their intelligence sometimes for the good of society and sometimes not.
In 2025, brilliant scientist Henry Messian is studying the effects of climate change on the glaciers of Greenland when sabotage leads him into deep trouble.
Thirty years later, his equally brilliant, but more troubled, son Paul comes up with a scheme to prevent global warming, and, not incidentally, to establish himself as a dictator.
“The Cocoon” is a cloud of sulfur dioxide continually renewed over the Northern Hemisphere, which prevents the sun's rays from overheating the earth, but also has multiple unfortunate side effects.
Decades pass, and in the wilds of Canada, young Yon grows up, and, cast out of the nest after the death of his caregivers, finds himself on a mission to save the world.
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Accompanied by a mysterious companion, he makes his way through a decimated New York, barely escaping the fascistic Black Guards who carry out Paul's rules, and then journeying to New Orleans and down to South America, where for the first time in his life, he sees the sun and stars, before completing his mission by returning to Washington, D.C.
Subtle, Darnton is not. One character, the sadistic Vexler Tigor, is described as “pure evil,” and the surname “Messian” more than hints at the eventual family role in the global drama.
Echoes of “Star Wars” and “Dune” abound in a novel where discovering the surprise identity of one's despicable father is a key plot point, and where a key character, raised by surrogate parents in the wilderness, is solemnly told, “You are a child of destiny,” as he goes forth on a redemptive quest.
Darnton packs the saga with plenty of facts and opinions about climate change, some dispensed by the otherworldly Soledad, a leader in the environmental movement in Latin America.
While the reader may have questions about some of the wisdom on offer − particularly about the solutions ultimately proposed for the global crisis – the expository passages don't bog the novel down.
Darnton knows how to craft a suspenseful thriller, with surprising and harrowing deaths galore.
Its nonstop action can keep readers turning pages, while its provocative thesis invites us to consider the impact of human intervention on nature.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: John Darnton's 'Burning Sky' touches on the battle of climate change
