I was looking forward to reading The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones, a dystopian/post-apocalyptic story that sounded intriguing. Set in the future, America is now divided into zones, some with acceptable living conditions and others most definitely not. Due to an infestation of ticks who are particularly invasive and dangerous, large areas have been emptied of people and left to return to nature. Now the only way to go into these areas is as a tourist, part of a guided group and in this book we follow one such group as they cross the salt line to experience nature. They go through extensive training, are supplied with special equipment and clothing, and must always travel in pairs.

The book started out as expected, introducing the ensemble cast and setting up their trip which was set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and North Carolina but once they got underway the story suddenly changed and instead of the high-octane survivalist story that I was expecting turned into a run-of-the-mill thriller with the group being taken prisoners. Instead of adventure and deadly ticks, the narrative became a social commentary on various subjects such as technology, human rights and quality of life concerns. I was left feeling confused and uncertain as to what the book was trying to accomplish.

I have seen mixed comments about this book, some handled the change in story direction well and others did not. I did not. On top of not being the story I expected, I found it quite slow and at times it got quite bogged down in politics. There weren’t any characters that I particularly cared about so all in all, a disappointing read for me. ( )

I like cli-fi. I also often think that the planet, being an organism, will be protecting itself in the future, in some way, from the humans--the poisoners. Here in this book the author has come up with a story about the Earth doing just that--protecting itself against the toxic humans. It comes in the form of a tick, that burrows under your skin, lays eggs, and when the eggs hatch, tear your skin to pieces getting out. That's not all--they can also give you a disease that paralyzes you. Whoo, this was a wild ride, and I loved every bit of it. ( )

Nature Turns on Humans

Set sometime in the near future, nature turns the tables on humans in the form of tiny ticks, These are powerful little creatures, particularly the deadly female, that kill painfully. To avoid them and carry on as usual, humans confine themselves to districts walled off from nature. The U.S. as we know it has vanished, replaced by large regional states of varying prosperity. People, it seems, live much as we do now within these regions, with a particular emphasis on the internet, social media, and entertainment, delivered via the ever present tablet. However, for the adventurous wealthy, organizations offer excursions beyond the wall into the real nature that we take for granted today.

Not everybody, though, lives behind the walls. In the outer zones, people live somewhat like our 19th century ancestors did, by their wits and off the land. While life can be brutal and lawless with the strongest and meanest taking advantage of the weak and young, some have organized into communities resembling communes. One such commune, known as Ruby City, led by a mother figure named June, thrives, partly by producing and selling an illegal drug called Salt, a drug that, refined in another way, possesses other properties that both make life in a wilderness possible but also potentially doom humanity over the long run.

Among the characters, in addition to June, are the excursionists: Jesse, the pop music star and his girlfriend Edie; Marta, wife of kingpin gangster and wannabe region president David Perrone; Wes, a boyish wunderkind internet entrepreneur; as well as an assortment of others. Ruby City principals include excursion leader Andy, who lives in both worlds, and Violet, the “adopted” daughter of June, badly disfigured as a child in a sexually abusive community. The tourists become prisoners of the Ruby City group, hostages in June’s plan for survival against the assault of Perrone, who has an interest in controlling the community’s Salt production. It gives nothing away to say that things go badly awry.

Perhaps the best way to describe the novel is to remind you of Jurassic Park. In the beginning, the novelty of the new world intrigues you, as do the reconstituted dinosaurs in the movie. Then all that marvel turns into dashing about to survive. And in the case of the novel, layer on plenty of character histories. That is to say, the promise of the novel gets lost in a lot of running around with bouts of introspection on the part of the characters, so in the end, readers aren’t left with much. There are better dystopian visions available.
( )

Nature Turns on Humans

Set sometime in the near future, nature turns the tables on humans in the form of tiny ticks, These are powerful little creatures, particularly the deadly female, that kill painfully. To avoid them and carry on as usual, humans confine themselves to districts walled off from nature. The U.S. as we know it has vanished, replaced by large regional states of varying prosperity. People, it seems, live much as we do now within these regions, with a particular emphasis on the internet, social media, and entertainment, delivered via the ever present tablet. However, for the adventurous wealthy, organizations offer excursions beyond the wall into the real nature that we take for granted today.

Not everybody, though, lives behind the walls. In the outer zones, people live somewhat like our 19th century ancestors did, by their wits and off the land. While life can be brutal and lawless with the strongest and meanest taking advantage of the weak and young, some have organized into communities resembling communes. One such commune, known as Ruby City, led by a mother figure named June, thrives, partly by producing and selling an illegal drug called Salt, a drug that, refined in another way, possesses other properties that both make life in a wilderness possible but also potentially doom humanity over the long run.

Among the characters, in addition to June, are the excursionists: Jesse, the pop music star and his girlfriend Edie; Marta, wife of kingpin gangster and wannabe region president David Perrone; Wes, a boyish wunderkind internet entrepreneur; as well as an assortment of others. Ruby City principals include excursion leader Andy, who lives in both worlds, and Violet, the “adopted” daughter of June, badly disfigured as a child in a sexually abusive community. The tourists become prisoners of the Ruby City group, hostages in June’s plan for survival against the assault of Perrone, who has an interest in controlling the community’s Salt production. It gives nothing away to say that things go badly awry.

Perhaps the best way to describe the novel is to remind you of Jurassic Park. In the beginning, the novelty of the new world intrigues you, as do the reconstituted dinosaurs in the movie. Then all that marvel turns into dashing about to survive. And in the case of the novel, layer on plenty of character histories. That is to say, the promise of the novel gets lost in a lot of running around with bouts of introspection on the part of the characters, so in the end, readers aren’t left with much. There are better dystopian visions available.
( )

I was actually disappointed in this book because I had been looking forward to the tick-infested dystopia, but the book is actually driven more by a survivalist social plot (which I still find interesting, but I had anticipated more of a medical/horror-driven story). ( )