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A review by schnaucl
Pines by Blake Crouch
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I liked it, although the more I thought about it, the less the premise made sense. The book mentions that people aren't allowed to talk about books that were available outside of Wayward Pines. With such a small population, I'm guessing there aren't many talented writers, and even if there were, how would they get published? But it's not just books that would date people, it's all forms of entertainment, film, music, games, even sports. But to avoid giving away the game on the different time periods you'd also have to eliminate politics, history, technology, slang, fashion, social attitudes. The book was published in 2012 and think about what's changed just since then. People spend a lot more time on their cell phones, which are much more powerful than they were in 2012. Almost everyone relies on their cell phones to be their cameras. Digital storage is cheap. We had the backlash to the Obama years with the Trump years. Abortion is illegal again in much of the country. Baseball has a pitch clock. Pickeleball is a thing.
And think about how people get to know each other. They talk about the things they're interested in, like entertainment. But under these rules you've eliminated that shared cultural understanding.
And that's before you get to no one being able to leave town (no matter how idyllic eventually people are going to want a change of scenery) and the nights where you're suddenly forced to brutally murder someone you probably know personally. And since there are multiple reintegration attempts, how are you supposed to remember if the conversation you had with someone was the current integration attempt or a prior one?
I absolutely believe that telling people everyone they know is dead and they can't go back to their prior life because it's been over for more than a thousand years would cause an unsustainable high number of suicides. I have a hard time believing that this sustained cognitive dissonance plus forced participation in murder wouldn't also result in high rates of suicide or people isolating themselves as much as possible (which I'm assuming would also be considered a failed integration).
At least with the knowledge that you're trying to save humanity there might be a common thing to bind the community together. Here, the only thing binding them together is forced murder and the collective agreement to pretend everything is fine and normal when it's clearly not.
I feel like your best bet would be to select for deep intellectual incuriosity, which doesn't bode well for keeping humanity going long term. That said, I'm not sure the genetic diversity would be enough for that anyway.
And how does the economy work? There's hotel, which I would think can only have guests that are new integrations, which won't have any money... although I thought there was another guest mentioned.
I get that there are literally tons of food stored, but presumably you'd want the community to be self sustaining at some point but I don't think farmers are mentioned. Who maintains the power for the town? How is it maintained? That takes specialized knowledge and some kind of industrial structure. What happens when power lines are damaged?
And think about how people get to know each other. They talk about the things they're interested in, like entertainment. But under these rules you've eliminated that shared cultural understanding.
And that's before you get to no one being able to leave town (no matter how idyllic eventually people are going to want a change of scenery) and the nights where you're suddenly forced to brutally murder someone you probably know personally. And since there are multiple reintegration attempts, how are you supposed to remember if the conversation you had with someone was the current integration attempt or a prior one?
I absolutely believe that telling people everyone they know is dead and they can't go back to their prior life because it's been over for more than a thousand years would cause an unsustainable high number of suicides. I have a hard time believing that this sustained cognitive dissonance plus forced participation in murder wouldn't also result in high rates of suicide or people isolating themselves as much as possible (which I'm assuming would also be considered a failed integration).
At least with the knowledge that you're trying to save humanity there might be a common thing to bind the community together. Here, the only thing binding them together is forced murder and the collective agreement to pretend everything is fine and normal when it's clearly not.
I feel like your best bet would be to select for deep intellectual incuriosity, which doesn't bode well for keeping humanity going long term. That said, I'm not sure the genetic diversity would be enough for that anyway.
And how does the economy work? There's hotel, which I would think can only have guests that are new integrations, which won't have any money... although I thought there was another guest mentioned.
I get that there are literally tons of food stored, but presumably you'd want the community to be self sustaining at some point but I don't think farmers are mentioned. Who maintains the power for the town? How is it maintained? That takes specialized knowledge and some kind of industrial structure. What happens when power lines are damaged?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Violence, Medical trauma, and Car accident
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Medical content, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Infidelity and Death of parent