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The Long Winter (2000)

by John Christopher(Favorite Author)

3.39 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

review 1: **1/2Mediocre, myopic post-apocalyptic novel. Altered solar radiation leads to mini-ice age in northern climates. England becomes arctic. We follow 3 upper middle-class Brits as they flee to Africa. In a nice touch, Christopher has these wealthy Brits becoming the servants and concubines of their formerly colonized Africans.Too much time is spent on the uninteresting relations of the 4 main characters (upper-class sexual meanderings: dull reading in the 21st century). Not enough (close to zero) world building (as in, how does one survive in the new arctic countries? What happens to everyone? What happens to animal & plant life?).In the final section, an African expedition on Hovercraft (another nice touch) explores the new frozen London.I recommend Wyndham’s “ The Da... morey of the Triffids” for the ultimate post-apocalyptic London exploration.
review 2: Not what I was expecting. Instead of an exploration of post apocalyptic England devoured by ice, we see a British couple try to make their way in Africa after the extreme weather hits home. The British pound has zero value after the country is devastated and the new immigrants from the north find themselves treated with the same condescending and racist manner from their African hosts that they had once applied to their former colonial citizens. This is Great stuff that's way ahead of its time for schlocky doomsday sci-fi from the sixties. There's also a pretty heavy love trianglish thing going on with plenty of shrewd psychological delving. Then there are the action scenes. Christopher usually handles action quite well, but it feels like he was uninterested in putting effort into these action scenes. The last quarter of the novel takes place on hovercrafts. Hovercrafts. less

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