The Awoken

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The Awoken book cover

I'm a harsh critic when it comes to Science Fiction. My love of the genre stems from a dystopian childhood filled with apocalyptic violence and destruction. Science Fiction, for me, was a portal to worlds that, though they may be just as bleak as mine, were nonetheless not mine. Where hope and grace and beauty could be found, if not in the settings and plots (the future is rarely envisioned brightly), then in the characters that were as exotic as their environments. Science Fiction is in my marrow. It sustained me and so I hold all authors up to the light of Frank Herbert, Issac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Ursula K Le Guin, William Gibson and the like; true Gods of world building. This is a bar too high to judge new authors fairly by. But life isn't fair. Just ask Margaret Atwood.

The Awoken begins with a resurrection. Specifically, that of Alabine Rivers, a cryogenically frozen young activist that died of cancer at an early age, her diagnosis coming just as she had found the kind of true love only a young adult novel can imagine.

The exciting premise of this novel is that Alabine is awoken 100 years after her death, in which time humanity has not only found a cure for her cancer, but found the technology and knowledge to successfully resurrect not only her, but anyone cryogenically frozen. And it is the imagining of how that new technology and knowledge has affected the world over generations that is the beating heart of this novel and what drove me to carry it to the register and pay for a hardback copy no less.

Imagine a world where death can be cheated at least one time. What does this mean for religion and the belief in souls and the afterlife? Do religions adapt and change to allow for this new reality? Or do they crumble into the dust from which they sprung?

What happens to personhood and inalienable rights? How does the law handle personhood and the awoken's rights to property, money, children, and even generational wealth?

What responsibility does society now owe to those that are still frozen? How does a society assimilate this new reality? This should have been the core of the novel, but Howes only touches on these themes, adding flavor and depth without fully satisfying the reader's curiosity.

Howes quickly jumps over a few of these questions and ignores others entirely. While this approach may leave some questions unanswered, it does create a compelling and tense atmosphere that keeps the reader engaged. The cultural climate Alabine is "Awoken" into is one where she is vilified as a soulless abomination that can legally be killed on sight. Borrowing from right-wing hypocrisy where pro-lifers are willing to kill in order to preserve the 'sanctity of life,' Alabine's new world is a hostile one through no fault of her own. She is awakened by "Resurrectionists" who believe the frozen are as human as their one-life-lived brethren.

But Howes doesn't plum these story lines deeply enough for me, and instead writes a young adult love novel. Think The Fifth Wave or Maze Runner. Fun reads. Interesting and exciting and enjoyable. But just not reaching the bar I've unfairly set.

3 out of 5 stars