Burn

Mr. Kelly's descriptions of burning and being burned, and the interactions between all his characters are really well done. And some are really painful. Spur and his relationship with his soon-to-be ex-wife Comfort, the pain of his memories of the death of Comfort's brother in a self-immolation that did so much destruction, I felt them all. The relationship of Walden with The Thousand Worlds is intricate and interestingly flawed. And the characters of Spur, High Gregory and the others of his band, and the various villagers and "government" people are very well done. "Burn" is a very fine multilayered book that reads quickly, like a simple adventure, but will cause you to come back and think about the many philosophical questions that JPK raises. Read this book. You'll like it!

James Patrick Kelly's BURN tells of a small planet whose new owner has his dreams of building his personal Walden from scratch - where voluntary simplicity is the rule. Unfortunately its existing inhabitants have other ideas - and they are capable of using fire to defend their own freedoms. Compromises, conflicts, and conflagrations evolve in a satisfying, changing plot that never fails to surprise.

I read this short novel on a long AMTRAK trip and imagine my surprise when part of the story took place on . . . a train! The setting is a planet that has been turned into a social experiment where the residents live in the sort of simple, utopian, agrarian society advocated by Henry David Thoreau. Unfortunately, their ideal world has displaced the planet's original residents, the Pukpuks, who retaliate by setting fires in the forests planted by the utopians. The science fiction element of the novel felt subtle and as a reader I was instead drawn in by the character of Spur, a firefighter wounded while battling the fires, and the rural community that could be anyone's hometown. This is very much a novel about a damaged man trying to do the right thing, with a good mix of humor, action and thought-provoking moral questions that mirror those of our own 21st century world. Good stuff. And who knew Thoreau was so fascinated by fire?