March09_2
I've been caught in a bog with this book, stuck fast and exhausted by it. 'The Daughters of Moab' by Kim Westwood, has excellent credentials: Australian science fiction, post-apocalyptic near-future, set in the outback, female protagonists... you'd think it had been written for me. Starts well. Nine years after Tribulation with the climate in turmoil, toxins rising from fissures in the earth and a murderous sun, the nutty Followers of Nathaniel have imprisoned the suspiciously healthy Daughers of Moab to drain them of their remarkable blood. They're not mad, just daft and isolated to distraction in an island of desert. The Daughters are all genetically modified transfects, part human, part dingo, eel, kangaroo, at the beginning of a bizarre evolution. A bold Daughter escapes, a rogue Nathaniel with farmer's blood aids her, and from there on in the story was all but incomprehensible. The language was beautiful, fluid and obscure: "Oliver, endowed with roach-...