Afterland

May 15, 2020
It's been about three years since HCV, a fatal cancer-causing virus targeting men, began sweeping the world. Now, in 2023, there's no cure in sight and reproduction has been made illegal to cut down on further infections in baby boys. Men and boys are hot commodities to both the interim government and other distinctly unsavory parties, but Cole isn't about to surrender her 12-year-old son, Miles, who seems to be immune, to anyone. In fact, the only thing she cares about is getting home to Johannesburg, South Africa, but it won't be easy. While in the U.S. visiting family, Cole's husband, Devon, died, and Cole and Miles were herded into army quarantine, where Miles, under the auspices of the Male Protection Act, endured a seemingly endless series of tests. But Cole just wants to go home, and soon after they're moved to a new bunker, she and her sister, Billie, who reunited with Cole and Miles at the military base after a job as executive chef on a superyacht went south, hatch an escape plan. But the conniving Billie doesn't have their best interests in mind, and Cole is forced to resort to violence. Now Cole and Miles, disguised as "Mila," are on the run. Meanwhile, Billie, sporting a nasty head injury courtesy of a Cole-wielded tire iron, must find Miles and deliver him to the very bad women she works for or they'll kill her. An already hellish road trip takes a strange turn when Miles and an exhausted Cole, seeking any kind of respite, join up with the nomadic nuns of the Church of All Sorrows, a cultish order that believes men will return if women would only repent for an endless litany of sins. Cole has a plan, but getting to the departure point alive will test her--and her relationship with her son--to the very limit. Miles and his mom form the beating heart of a harrowing tale that ably explores grief, motherhood, and gender roles, and Cole's struggle to protect Miles as he grapples with coming-of-age in a radically altered world will resonate. Beukes is a gifted storyteller who makes it thrillingly easy for readers to fall under her spell as she weaves a hypnotic vision of a fractured world without men. A propulsive and all-too-timely near-future thriller.

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May 18, 2020
In this intriguing and all too timely near-future thriller from South African author Beukes (The Shining Girls), human culgoa virus, “a highly contagious flu that turns into an aggressive prostate cancer in men and boys,” kills more than 99% of the world’s male population within six months of its outbreak. The global response to the disease includes a ban on pregnancies until science can prevent the virus from afflicting future generations. Miles, a healthy 12 year old, has been held by the Department of Men in California’s Napa Valley, where healthy young males are being guarded for their safety, until his mother, Cole, frees him in a violent encounter that leaves her sister, Billie, seriously injured. Cole disguises Miles as a girl, and they embark on a perilous odyssey aimed at escaping the U.S. for Cole’s native South Africa. After Billie recovers, she sets off in pursuit of Cole and Miles so that she can sell her nephew’s sperm for millions on the black market. Though Beukes’s worldbuilding isn’t on the level of The Handmaid’s Tale, in which a pandemic renders most women infertile, this is a worthy addition to the pandemic fiction subgenre. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath Literary (U.K.).

June 12, 2020

Beukes (Broken Monsters) pens a painfully plausible plague novel set three years after Manfall, a cancer-causing virus that killed 99 percent of the males worldwide. Women run the world now, reproduction is a crime, and the few remaining males are either in hiding or under government "protection." One such male is 12-year-old Miles, who is held at a U.S. military base, along with his mother, Cole, and her sister, Billie. Cole and Billie plot to escape with Miles and go to South Africa, where they're from. Cole learns that Billie has more nefarious plans for her son, and after a violent confrontation, she and Miles hit the road, with Miles posing as her daughter, Mila. On their perilous journey, they encounter allies, enemies, and unwitting enablers, including a group of colorfully garbed nuns who believe that repentance will bring back men. They are pursued by a trio of cold-blooded characters who want to sell Miles to the highest bidder. Some characterizations are thin here, but the action and tension are strong, and chapters told from different points of view work well, particularly when Miles is spotlighted. VERDICT Fans of chase novels and postapocalyptic stories will enjoy.--Liz French, Library Journal

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2020
Beukes (Broken Monsters, 2015) imagines a world without men in this eerie near-future dystopia. Cole Brody and her son Miles are on the run. An oncovirus, which causes a deadly form of prostate cancer, has decimated the world's population. Miles is one of the last remaining biological males. After being detained in a U.S. government research center, Cole is desperate to get back to their native South Africa. The military is after them, but so is Cole's sister, Billie, who is playing a dangerous game with contacts in the black market. Cole and Miles, now disguised as Mila, encounter food shortages, abandoned homes, people driven insane by the pandemic, and a new-age convent as they attempt escape. Readers of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's graphic novel series, Y: The Last Man, will be drawn to the plot parallels in this eerily relevant book. Beukes' tender, insightful treatment of the relationship between mother and son is significant, and the interplay between feuding sisters is fascinating, as well.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)