A review by jrosenstein
The Not Yet by Moira Crone

3.0

I got this book by New Orleans author Crone, in an awesome bookstore in NOLA called Faulkner House books. The bookstore is in a house where Faulkner once lived, right next to St. Louis Cathedral and on a street called Pirate's Alley. It was lovely and I wanted to get something by a local scifi or fantasy author but the clerk said there aren't many in New Orleans. Luckily, I managed to stumble across this book. Crone's dystopian vision of a New Orleans nearly completely submerged by rising sea waters is not exactly original, but her take on the future has its own unique flavor. She imagines a world where a small elite are essentially able to live forever while everyone else struggles just to survive. Admittedly I wanted some more clarity and answers to some of the mysteries in the book, but I appreciate what Crone is trying to do with her use of ambiguity. She does not make you at home in the world and reveals information slowly so that the reader feels the same confusion and alienation as the narrator. Sometimes it feels a bit disjointed because we as readers figure things out before the narrator does, but overall it's an effective technique. If you like atmospheric, literary scifi and dystopia, you'll like this.