When we Wake

Karen Healey

Another variation on the dystopian future, teen hero novel. Tegan is a young girl who finally pronounces her love to her long time crush and then gets in the way of a sniper bullet the same day. All of one chapter takes place in early 21st century Australia. The remainder of the book takes place 100 years later, when Tegan is rejuvenated from her century long cryogenic nap. She is the first subject to be woken up and "repaired" and reintroduced to life. She is (of course) a strong personality and meets some additional strong personalities at school and her little cohort sets off to change the world. I love to see how different authors envision the world of the future. Here we see a dramatically climate changed Earth and Australia as a bastion of stability (based on its isolationist policies). Journalists all have personal "bumblebee" cameras that they use get video and post continuous updates on the network. Computers are flexible (literally), powerful and ubiquitous. And power remains power - seemingly unchecked, imperial, and nefarious. Add the difficult issue of good people working for power, without knowing (or unwilling to know) that they contribute to a system in fundamental opposition to their values and you have lots of parallels to our current world. You could read this as another generic dystopian future book and check your brain at the door, or you can read and reflect on the parallels between the 22nd century world created by Healey and our world and use it as an opportunity to think.

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