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Summary
Summary
Book Two in the critically acclaimed The Fire Sermon trilogy-- The Hunger Games meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road in this richly imagined post-apocalyptic series by award-winning poet Francesca Haig.
Four hundred years in the future, the Earth has turned primitive following a nuclear fire that has laid waste to civilization and nature. Though the radiation fallout has ended, for some unknowable reason every person is born with a twin. Of each pair, one is an Alpha--physically perfect in every way; and the other an Omega--burdened with deformity, small or large. With the Council ruling an apartheid-like society, Omegas are branded and ostracized while the Alphas have gathered the world's sparse resources for themselves. Though proclaiming their superiority, for all their effort, Alphas cannot escape one harsh fact: whenever one twin dies, so does the other.
Cass is a rare Omega, one burdened with psychic foresight. While her twin, Zach, gains power on the Alpha Council, she dares to dream the most dangerous dream of all: equality. For daring to envision a world in which Alphas and Omegas live side-by-side as equals, both the Council and the Resistance have her in their sights.
Author Notes
Francesca Haig grew up in Tasmania. She earned a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Hons) and PhD from the University of Melbourne. She also tutored in Film Studies and Creative Writing. She was a senior lecturer at the University of Chester. Her poetry has been published in literary journals and anthologies in both Australia and England. Her first collection of poetry is entitled Bodies of Water. In 2010 she was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. The Fire Sermon is her first novel.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Haig's second Fire Sermon novel continues the postapocalyptic saga in which humanity has survived in the form of pairs of genetically "perfect" Alphas and sterile, "deformed" Omegas. Each Alpha-Omega pair is psychically connected so that if one twin dies, so does the other. The Alphas have systematically oppressed their siblings and are moving ahead on an aggressive plan to place them in suspended animation using taboo technology. Omega and seer Cass is determined to thwart this, especially since her own twin, Zach, is its mastermind. But to save Omegas everywhere, she has to rekindle an all-but-destroyed rebellion and locate the fabled Ark, a last-ditch storehouse of information and technology predating the nuclear war that destroyed civilization. Haig fleshes out her radiation-scarred dystopian setting and its intrigues, as well as touching upon the last survivors of the old world. It's a grim, atmospheric tale featuring unpleasant decisions and morally compromised characters, with very little brightness to balance it out, but Haig does interject the occasional positive note. Much is left unresolved, of course, setting up the final installment. Agent: Juliet Mushens, United Talent Agency. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
This sequel to The Fire Sermon (2015) extends and deepens its story of a post-apocalyptic world riven by war. Cass lives in a world divided in two by the nuclear blast that destroyed the old, technological world and created the twinning phenomenon that makes every pregnancy result in a twin birth: one child is always an Alpha, perfect and whole, and one an infertile, mutated Omega. Despite their differences, twins are bound together for lifewhen one dies, the other dies, too. In the first book, Cass, whose mutation is that she can see the future, escaped her twin, Zach, a powerful player on the ruling Alpha Council. She rescued a boy called Kip from a kind of living death, floating unconscious in a tank built by the Alphas to imprison their Omega twins to keep them away from harm. But even her visions couldn't keep the council from slaughtering hundreds of Omegas on the island that had been their only refuge or stop Kip from sacrificing his life to end that of his twin, who was working with the council. Now, along with Piper, a resistance leader, and his sympathetic Alpha twin, Zoe, Cass must prevent Zach and the rest of the council from trapping all Omegas in these horrifying tanks. Haig isn't afraid to take readers into dark places, letting her characters struggle with grief and tough moral choices. Suspense comes as much from uncovering the secrets of the past as from moving inexorably toward the uncertain future. A powerful post-apocalyptic story with unusual emotional depth and clear, often beautiful language, this is one genre fans won't want to miss. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The second installment of the Fire Sermon series returns to postapocalyptic earth, where a nuclear event 400 years ago resulted in a human genetic mutation called twinning. All births now produce both a flawless Alpha child and a physically (or psychically) impaired Omega Child. The twins are dependent on each other for life (when one dies, so does the other); but the brutal Alpha regime they live under forces Omegas to live apart as second-class citizens. Cass, an Omega who possesses the rare mutation of psychic foresight, continues her central role in the Omega resistance movement while suffering through terrifying and prophetic visions that are vital to her work. With an impending civil war and the discovery of the Alpha government's sinister plan for the Omegas, the resistance must act quickly to save themselves and humankind. Beautifully written, action packed, and character driven, this satisfying series continuation reveals new and fascinating information about what led to the earth's destruction and caused an oppressive, technophobic society to rise up in its ashes.--Price, Kerri Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In Haig's The Fire Sermon, 400 years after a nuclear blast decimated the world, the surviving population developed into two factions-the downtrodden Omegas and the privileged Alphas. In this sequel Cass, an Omega and a Seer, is on the run with former Resistance leader Piper and his twin, Zoe. The three must try to fix the broken sections of the Resistance and stop the progression of the horror machines known as "the tanks." Cass thinks there could be new hope in stolen papers from "the before" that mention a life-saving vessel, the Ark, but she will have to betray her people and partner with an Alpha council member if she wants to find it. Magnifying the bleak conditions and desperation that Cass and her companions have to grapple with, Haig's prose is both heartbreaking and beautifully rendered. VERDICT Readers who relish dystopian literature such as Suzanne Collins's "The Hunger Games" trilogy or Ryan Winfield's "The Park Service" books will appreciate the original aspects of Haig's series.-Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
