I would not be surprised to see Winters return to this created world to tell other stories. As the novel progresses, small tidbits about how the world came to be the way it is are exposed – all very plausible and fascinating. Most common in fantasy novels, this level of created history is rare in the crime fiction community. The masterwork here is the world-building that Ben Winters does behind the scenes. This simmering, slow-burn thriller takes Victor on both a physical journey and a personal excavation of character – each of which will grip the reader tight. He also encounters a young white woman with a mixed-race child who will reveal personal attributes Victor never knew he had buried inside. Victor’s employer is a man with secrets of his own and the discovery of those send shock waves through Victor’s mind. Victor’s work takes him to the Northern areas where he is searching for Jackdaw, a slave on the lam from a cotton clothing company called Garments of the Greater South, Inc. His work is much like that of modern day repo men, only instead of repossessing vehicles, Victor is responsible for securing runaway slaves. Our focus on this journey into the altered universe is Victor, a black man working as a bounty hunter. Set in the modern world as we know it – except that the Civil War never occurred and slavery is still legal in the Hard Four (four territories in the Southern U.S.) – Underground Airlines reads very much like a novel of the moment. With Underground Airlines, Ben Winters has crafted an alternate history saga. Make no mistake about it, however, Underground Airlines is poised to be one of the most talked about books of the year. Winters’ new novel, Underground Airlines, makes it seem like an audacious undertaking fraught with potential risk and ripe for controversy, but the end product shows great restraint with respect for our not-always commendable past and enlightenment towards a better future.
0 kommentar(er)
