Journal of the Flood

David Ely, a seemingly mysterious writer, has written two novels (and a boatload of excellent short stories). One, Seconds, was made into an four-star movie directed by John Frankenheimer--and I'm sure the movie more than benefitted from the quality of the original work. The other, Journal of the Flood Year, seems to have been sunk in the typical sea of lousy sci-fi... yet I found it to be a standout work. It portrays an dark (but, unfortunately, realistic) future where people do their utmost to avoid personal contact, sex is done completly via simulation, robots are everywhere, and the US is surrounded by a gigantic wall holding the sea back. At the beginning of the novel our protagonist discovers the wall is starting to leak. A terrible misfortune for him, because nobody wants to hear about it--and they go to extreme lengths to make sure he doesn't tell them. The rest of the story covers his cross-continent adventures in trying to find someone to pay attention. Darkly humorous at times, and the novel's final ending was a bit of a surprise. The author often avoids describing things in any detail, and it's left entirely to your wits to imagine what the robots look like, or many of the other devices used in the book. I think that's good, but others may not. It's got a few problems; it occasionally seems to rely on technological gobbledygook to advance the plot, though it works because the author never tries to explain any of it. (Just trying to imagine a giant wall holding the sea back makes my head spin.) I would've enjoyed more emphasis on the contrast of a society enforcing isolation versus the innate human desire for personal contact, but overall I'd say this was handled pretty well. Worth reading? I think so. It's not a light read, and a few parts are more than a bit disturbing, but it was worth the journey.