A review by lazygal
Captives by Jill Williamson
3.0
I know Zondervan publishes a lot of religious books, or perhaps "books with a certain slant" is a better way of phrasing that. So I was a little apprehensive starting this dystopian book that takes place in the west (what we formerly called Colorado). There are outlier communities held together by faith and hard work, and the Safe Lands where the population is addicted to stims and PVs and technology - we move between them for a while until, thanks to misfit Omar, the Safe Landers capture many of the members of his village and forcibly bring them to the Safe Lands.
The problem is the thin plague, which vaguely sounds like AIDS and has rendered the population not quite sterile, but not able to procreate either. The reason for the capture is that there is a need for non-infected people to help with this problem, either as donors (males) or surrogates (females). And that's where the Christian message comes in: people having sex without marriage, surrogacy, etc. are all part of the Safe Lands lives and are ethically, morally wrong (as the villager see it). While the message isn't overly heavy, it's not subtle either.
Had the world building been a little better, this might have been a better read, but because there's a Message here it probably was less important than bringing that Message to the forefront.
The problem is the thin plague, which vaguely sounds like AIDS and has rendered the population not quite sterile, but not able to procreate either. The reason for the capture is that there is a need for non-infected people to help with this problem, either as donors (males) or surrogates (females). And that's where the Christian message comes in: people having sex without marriage, surrogacy, etc. are all part of the Safe Lands lives and are ethically, morally wrong (as the villager see it). While the message isn't overly heavy, it's not subtle either.
Had the world building been a little better, this might have been a better read, but because there's a Message here it probably was less important than bringing that Message to the forefront.