This review will go live at the link below on 30 June:

Hi and welcome to my review of This Fragile Earth! Huge thanks to Anne Cater for the invite and to Gollancz for the eARC.

This Fragile Earth is set in a not too distant future. It takes the world as we know it, and our current global problems, and runs with it – think Black Mirror. Tech has evolved immensely, bees have been replaced by pollination drones, people have to wear UV glasses when they go outside. Naturally, these are things the reader needs to be told in order to appreciate what’s happening and I loved how Ms Wise goes about explaining this world she’s imagined. Rather than info dumping in the first few chapters, she uses a kid to do the explaining: six-year-old Jed is always chattering away, in the way kids do, about things he notices or commenting on stuff his teacher told his class about global issues. It all feels very natural, part of a kid’s routine and a mum’s exasperation (yes, darling, we know!) but after a while you realise just how much you’ve gleaned.

Tech is all very handy but, as anyone who has ever had their computer crash will know: when it malfunctions, you’re screwed. Imagine a world that’s even more reliant on computers then it is right now. A world where you don’t have to take your keys with you since you can unlock the front door just by using the palm of your hand. Robots take care of agriculture, policing and your health, and drones ensure pollination. Imagine all that tech starting to malfunction, acting weird, crashing. No more tech, no electricity, no water. Just how complacent has humankind become? And how will it move on from this?

Following this crisis and its immediate consequences, a mother and her son flee the city and make their way to their (grand)mother’s house. They are under constant threat: hunger, thirst, illness, and fellow travellers who have gone rogue and pillage and plunder to survive. It makes for very tense reading because you just want this little boy and his mum to be okay.

I do love me a good dystopian thriller and that’s exactly what This Fragile Earth is. I wouldn’t have minded if it had been a little bit longer, so that certain aspects might have got a little more elaboration, but still this is a solid apocalyptic adventure that does precisely what it should: captivate and fascinate, while making you ponder what if. If you enjoy dystopian literature, this debut should definitely be on your wishlist.

This Fragile Earth is out now in digital formats, hardback and audio (narrated by the author herself).

2021 is fast becoming a year of dystopian reading for me; usually post-apocalyptic books are far from my favourite genre. But here, in the middle of a global pandemic, all I want to read are books where the world is seemingly coming to an end. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I am sure that I’m far from alone in consuming these stories right now. Rather than being depressing, I am finding these books comforting. It could be that in these stories, things are always much worse for the characters than they have been for us, although many of them begin the same way as our pandemic did – with the confusion and fear that characterised the early days of lockdown, when we were all newbies to the reality of our situation.

I think the real reason I like them so much is that many of them, no matter how dark, always end on a note of hope for humanity, for the people who do manage to survive. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a noticeable wave of post-apocalyptic books coming out in the next few years as people work through the pandemic. Things have changed for us, as humans, and we need to figure it out. We are all much more aware of how quickly things can turn and of how vulnerable we truly are.

Susannah Wise’s This Fragile Earth is set in a slightly futuristic, dystopian feeling London. In this future, the bees have already died off and been replaced by pollination drones. Some of the animals aren’t safe to eat. Some of the water isn’t safe to drink. Anti-biotics have stopped working. In this already slightly frightening world, Signy and Matthew live with their six-year-old son Jed in a loveless and difficult marriage. When the copious technology that runs their entire lives stops working, it takes a few days for them to realise that it is more than a glitch. Neighbours are disappearing. There are soldiers everywhere. And the drones are starting to behave very strangely.

This Fragile Earth is an anxiety inducing read, and that is partly because it plays so heavily on post-apocalyptic themes that we have all come to experience in the last year and a half. We now all know how normality can turn on a knife edge. We know that there are only a few small steps between civilisation and catastrophe. Signy is unsure, at the very beginning, of precisely what is happening. She only knows that there is a run on food in the shops but no one really seems to know or understand why. She only knows that things feel strange. A lot of the early chapters of This Fragile Earth felt so relatable to me that I had to take a break from reading them, just to centre myself.

Wise’s tight focus on Signy as our narrator is the real strength of the book. She is an anxious soul – understandably so, looking at the world she already lives in. As things begin to fall apart around her, we are kept so close to her and her internal monologue that it is impossible to do anything except view every single thing through her eyes. Every person she comes across is a potential threat. Nowhere is safe. Infusing the book with that kind of overpowering voice keeps us on the edge as readers, and pulls us along. Signy feels very real.

Without going into too much detail, I felt as though the last quarter of the book, full of technobabble, let down what was up until then a tightly-wound story. My mind began to wander, when it was just getting to the point of climactic action. Signy’s existence, and her concern for Jed, should have still been the main focus of the ending. The mystery of what had happened should have remained a mystery, or at least much more murky than it was. The futuristic nature of the setting had to have some purpose, I suppose, but the human story is always what makes a post-apocalyptic novel worth reading, and I really would have liked for the human story to remain front and centre.

Oh my word! I loved "This Fragile Earth" and flew through it in no time. It's a really great story, and while I didn't like most of the characters, "Jed" more than made up for it (he's adorable and it's worth reading this book for him alone!). It's written well and though it's a simple idea it is brought to life perfectly. Let's hope Kate Sawyer hasn't had a glimpse of the future!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

I'm not really sure what genre this book belongs in - mostly science fiction / dystopian, but also a journey of survival with a bit of "magical realism" thrown in. Either way, it's unusual and captivating.

It's set probably 30-40 years in the future, with Artificial Intelligence believably extrapolated from today's technology. Everything is controlled by ubiquitous robots and electronics which open your front door, pay for food, empty bins and police the population. The climate has gone awry, many plant species have died out or been changed by genetic engineering, and pollen drones are all over the place having replaced the almost-extinct bees. Everyone accepts this as normal.

When the power suddenly goes off, things fall apart quickly and a family must travel north to get out of London to what they hope is a place of safety.

The book features the golden ratio, music as a way of communicating, and of course a mother's need to protect her son. The sentences are short and choppy, with a 'stream of consciousness' from Signy, the mother. Sometimes it's difficult to know what's real and what is imagined or hallucinated, and the book gets more surreal as it progresses.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an early e-copy for unbiased review.

I am not a big reader of science fiction but this tickled my fancy because it is near future. I saw this on the twitterverse and with what the world is going through right now I thought I would give it a go. I am really glad I did. Although it is a form of science fiction it's really about family and the lengths a mother will go to to save her son.

This story is fraught with tension and suspense. Will they or won't they? What is causing these problems? Is it safe? Should we stay or should we go? And I just loved the characters. Signy was a strong, capable woman who did her best for her son. Jed was precious and precocious...he reminded me a lot of my youngest at that age. The format of the book was such a good idea...instead of Chapter One we have Day One etc. I also loved the theme and message the book represents. Our Earth IS fragile and we humans should take much better care of her. This was such an enjoyable read that I read it in a day, I just couldn't get to the end fast enough.

All technology stops and you feel like you are all alone but you also have to care for your precocious 6 year old son, Jed. This is the setting for Susannah Wise's first novel, "This Fragile Earth".

This is a well-written book and the dialogue between Faith and her son during their travels was hilarious, wonderful and touching. Certainly Signy has a lot more patience with her child than I will ever have.

This Fragile Earth is an intriguing apocalyptic thriller. The book is set in a future where the bees have died and drones and bots are the new way of life draws good parallels to the path that we are on at the moment. The story follows Sygny and her 6 year old son Jed as they embark on a journey to get to Jed’s grandmother’s house as technology fails around them.

I love dystopian fiction and sci-fi so I really enjoyed those elements of the book. I liked the thought of a civilisation so dependent on technology that when it starts to fail even simple tasks such as opening the door to their house or working out where they are on a motorway become impossible. I enjoyed what world building there was but I would have liked a little more backstory. We got a few mentions of past history (eg: when the bees died) but it didn’t feel enough and I was left a little unsatisfied – I wanted to know more. This is a good sign though as what was written I found intriguing, I just would have liked more of it. There are also a few confusing science points made in this book about codes and sequences tied to harmonies and music which was a nice image but I think detracted and muddled the book. The overall conclusion of what was happening and why became clear and was easy to understand but I felt that the TrincX bits weren’t needed and ultimately didn’t really add anything to the plot. I also felt there were some fairly large plot holes, for example, I still don’t understand where all the humans had gone. 1 day after the power goes down Syg and Jed go onto a motorway and only meet a couple of people on the entire road, despite there being a large number of stationary cars and thousands of people flooding to get out of London. The village their grandmother lives in is also completely empty and there are also no bodies seen either which is a little confusing.

My main trouble with the story is its characters, which is unfortunate as it is mainly focussed on only 2 people – Syd and Jed. Syd is straight forward enough and easy to empathise with although towards the end she starts becoming an unreliable narrator and goes a bit off the rails, the cause of which is not really explained. She also makes some questionable decisions as to what lies she tells people and the main lie she tells to Jed is never resolved which was a shame. I also agree with one reviewer that pointed out that the cover and the blurb give away a massive plot twist that would have had a much harder impact on me if I hadn’t already assumed it would happen before reading the book!

Jed is where I had main problems; he is a 6 year old boy and yet his dialogue seems to jump from being a whiny child to being a teenage coding expert which made no sense. He even says at one point: “With the infinity sequence, you can loop the constellations into cycles. Then the programming has a different function… the algorithm continues learning.” Does that sound like any 6 year old you’ve ever heard? I think the author could have easily put him as at least 10/11 and it still would have been impressive but a lot more believable. He was also used as an exposition dump for coding and computer knowledge with his parents asking him questions which seemed very odd. As well as being a child genius, Jed is the most annoying travel companion and if I was Syd I probably would have left him on the road at various points. He yells out even when their lives could be in danger, he tells people secrets he’s been explicitly told not to tell, he also refuses to do things and is all round very frustrating. I understand that he’s only a child but when his high intellect is highlighted so often it seemed confusing that he’d put his life and the life of his mother in danger so many times.

Overall, This Fragile Earth is a bit of a frustrating read, I was crying out for some more worldbuilding and one of the main characters was unrealistic and frustrating. The climax also felt rushed and lots of threads were left unresolved. Thank you to NetGalley & Orion Books – Gollancz for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this book. I have no questions about the writing and the premise and I am sure that it will find many readers, but I just couldn't get into it. I don't know, it started with the confusion about Jed's age, such as him talking about The Golden Ratio and then later finding out that he is, in fact, six years old. I suppose he must be really smart for his age, but I haven't made it past the first couple of chapters. Having said that, I kept delaying giving feedback because I really hate not finishing a book. In the end, I still decided to do so. However, there is nothing negative I can say about This Fragile Earth and I don't want to discourage anyone from reading it.

This was a pretty tense read for me but highly enjoyable! Loved the storyline and can imagine it’s not too far in the future to be honest with the way we live at the minute, I loved the characters and I was gripped from a few pages in, I’m not one for dystopian novels to be fair but this one took a hold and I devoured it in two sittings, what would you do to protect your family??? Ask yourself, and then read the book!

Fascinating insight into human nature and the way we think and act, just loved it really and would highly recommend to others.

There has been quite an onslaught of 'books with a message' lately and since I love dystopian fiction I keep choosing to read them!

I am not the biggest fan of being preached too via fiction and that is one of the reasons I've rated this book 3 stars not higher.

However, this is a very atmospheric book and is written very well.

The characters are very well drawn though Jed was much too mature for a 6 year old. His age would be more like 10 or 11 given the subject matters he was constantly discussing.

Signy was also a very real and a very steady main character and I enjoyed seeing everything through her eyes. The only times I really disliked Signy was when she told a pointless lie to her boy genius son...and a pointless lie to a kind hearted family. Both were weird and seemed out of character but then I guess flaws do make for a well rounded character!

The ideas were very intriguing but the attempt to make them original went a bit far. For example- I worked out what was happening really early on...then for the rest of the book we were weighed down with too much technical explanations that didn't really mean anything and were not necessary because the simplest explanation would have been the best. I think the over complicating of the descriptions was an attempt to make the ideas more original but in fact bogged down the narrative with unnecessary technical jargon...which at certain points got a bit much...

I would have loved to have known more about the Beetle Blight and Bovine Staph and thought the way these were explained were very insightful and clever...but I would have happily skipped some of the technology to hear more about these and the impact on society.
I also would have loved to have heard more about why Australia was in such a state and why Signys brother was there.


There was far too much description in some parts and far too little in others. I think the over descriptions were what led towards the feeling of preaching in parts ...and the atmosphere and realism of the world built would have stood up much better without that...as we would have drawn the same conclusions anyway. I think there should have been a bit more shown not told within this world.

There were also some narrative strands that didn't lead anywhere really...the missing days for example or the dog...and Vicky and Steve..and Michelle...they seemed to be building up to something but just didn't actually go anywhere which was a shame.

I think that the novel I wanted to read was in there...with interesting illnesses and artifical flowers and dead bees and a plucky woman doing anything to save her son...but then it got waylaid by technology and a heavy handed message to look after the Earth. Which is a great message but was a bit too strident here.

There was also an amazing scene that was ruined by the cover. I won't say what but it had zero impact because of it...and really easily could have been avoided....and I can't imagine I'm the only one who knew on page 1.

This is an interesting dystopian book...and could have been one of the greats with a few little tweaks.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Do you ever really stop and think about how many ways technology impacts our daily lives? From computer control modules in our vehicles to credit and debit cards to smart phones, smart doorbells, and more, we're a society very reliant on tech. Do you ever think about what the world might look like if all that tech suddenly just....stopped?

In This Fragile Earth, the tech is even more advanced/prolific than in our reality. In a not-too-distant future London, we meet Signy and Matthew and their young son Jed. They rely on technology for just about everything. Plants are artificially grown and pollinated. Agriculture is now an AI function. Medicine, currency, food, transportation, all of it controlled by AI. Signy and Matthew don't seem very happy in their marriage. They're just muddling along, keeping it together for Jed's sake, when one day, the power goes out. And stays out.

Here's a spoiler, but just a little one - Matthew doesn't make it out with Signy and Jed. (The synopsis says so - "A shocking incident sends Signy and Jed on the run, desperate to flee London and escape to the small village where Signy grew up." Y'all already knew Matthew wasn't with them.) So now we have a woman on her own and her young son, she's frantic to get to safety, and protecting Jed is paramount. Signy comes across as distrustful of almost everyone and everything she encounters, and to some readers, that may make her a less than sympathetic protagonist. But think about it. How would you react if your entire world was turned on its ear, nothing worked like it was supposed to, and you'd already seen others prove that they were only looking out for themselves in this mad new reality? Might it make you a little leery of folks? I think it would me, particularly if I had a young child relying on me for his well-being.

The technology doesn't require extreme suspension of disbelief. Characters and interactions are largely believable (although sometimes Jed seems to talk in ways well beyond his years - there's precocious and then there's, wait a minute, did he really talk like that?). When the reason for everything falling apart is revealed, it's maybe the teensiest bit preachy, but not really, because the book makes an important point. We ARE responsible for taking care of this planet, and good stewardship does matter.

This was an enjoyable read. My thanks to Gollancz and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I was kindly given this book to review via Netgalley and was excited by the premise however I think the appeal of this book has passed me by. Other reviewers are raving about this book so I feel I should outline the issues I had with this novel.

Firstly, I intensely disliked the main character, Signy. It seems to be common for authors to write their protagonists as, frankly, not very nice people. That is not to say that they are horrible or villains by any means, however, they just aren't people that I would want to spend time with personally. This is an issue that I had with books like One Day which is incredibly popular so it clearly is a personal preference. For instance, she has a son Jed with whom she seems to spend most of the book either telling him to shut up or having long theoretical conversations with him. She is equally unkind about her husband, friends and even "longed to correct [the] grammar" of a neighbour who asked her "Have you got no electric?"

That brings us to Jed. In the first few pages I mistakenly assumed he was around four as for example on page 1 "'Hallo! Goodbye! Hallo! Goodbye!' Jed's hand waved back and forth, greeting his own shadow as it dipped in and out between parked cars" and on page 2 he takes his jumper off saying 'Too hot'. Cute images that are continued when he continued as he smells flowers saying "'Smells like that lady's house we went to one time, with the biscuits and the potty. Where we sang "Good King When's His Lass".'" I was almost immediately thrown when on page 3 Signy states that "They'd only been once, two Christmases ago." which given the reader is told that it is March made me realise the child was unlikely to be so young. Jed then reads the name plate on a plant before instigating a sophisticated conversation with his mother on the Golden Ratio (including quoting part of the number) as well as Fibonacci. Clearly not four! He then reverts back to his childlike speech patterns with "Mama, come and smell these pink ones!" He uses or recognises words such as "Fibonacci", "existence", "spheres", "mathematically" and "UV lenses" but his mother comments that the word "appropriate" was "a big word for a small person". I think it was this switching that I found confusing as Jed's speech didn't seem consistent and sounded at times like an info dump rather than a realistic conversation. I know children do like to tell adults what they have learnt or read but there was something unnatural about the switching of register. I also did have to wonder why a young child would be so anxious enough to ask "You cross?" of his mother.

Much of the book was written in an easy to read style but every now and again the author would throw in a word that seemed out of place such as "flexuous" (p5), "serried" (p37), "baffle of boxes" (p60) or odd, arguably overwritten passages such as "She glanced at her wrist, though she could almost always tell the time without a watch now. She thought without resentment that this was one of the premier skills learned from the routine school pick-up. Snacks! Playground! Holoscreen! Children's lives existing entirely in the vocative." (p8) Maybe I am the only one who feels that if you have to say something was "thought without resentment" there is an element of protesting too much?

On page 6 we were given a not so subtle explanation of technology that is arguably ubiquitous in the modern world "GQOS' voice from the GScope again. You could tell GQOS was an AI system because no human could sound that happy all the time." I admit that I am probably being picky here but at no point before this did I imagine that the voice from the GQOS device that projected a 3D hologram of the caller was not an AI. Due to taking modules is creative writing I was also very aware of an occasional plague of adverbs. For example I"m not sure how her GScope could ring and then the "GQOS' voice began, a little tardily, given the GScope was already ringing." With hindsight this could have been a "clue" that the computer systems were being disrupted however there wasn't enough establishment of the status quo by page 4 for the reader to make that assumption. In contrast, I am not sure whether "Conglomerate North" (p8) was ever defined and I assumed it was some sort of company though given the setting was London I ended up wondering what it was "North" of?

On page 14 I was a little flummoxed by the description of Signy coming home after being "gone for four hours" to a kitchen that "smelled odd". When Jed opens the freezer door "[t]he mulchy odour of thawing veg filled the room". It is possible that devices work differently in this reality however whenever I have attempted to defrost my freezer it certainly takes longer than four hours and that is open and empty. If the door was shut the thermal insulation should keep the food cold for a significant period in case of a power cut and also as this increases the efficiency of the appliance.

There were lots of other odd passages such as on page 28 when Signy couldn't sleep and lay awake "listening to Jed's rhythmical breathing in the next room" despite her own breathing, Matthew's (her husband) who was starting to snore and their door being closed. She either has brilliant hearing or that child might need a doctor. The shops also seemed to be staffed by people for whom English was not their first language as their sentences were poorly structured such as "Only synthetic-meat spring roll now. Is okay?" (p16) Having lived in very ethnically diverse areas and shopped in stores and restaurants similar to those described, I can say that their English was usually excellent. She also seems to pay in a shop using a digital card "There were only three Litecoin credits left on the card" (p40) before realising that the cash machine won't work due to the power cut. How did the Litecoin card work?

The author was incredibly free with the use of expletives within the text. Arguably, in a true crisis we all swear or curse far too much but I didn't feel like it lent much to the story beyond making Signy seem even more bad tempered and bitter. There was even a moment that caused me to double take when Jed used a particular word beginning with 'C' completely out of the blue. This seemed unnecessary on the part of the author and purely for the shocking effect. There were also numerous graphic descriptions of nakedness or various states thereof which again didn't add anything to the novel for me personally. Not to mention the scene of the cat eating its feline companion's vomit!

I can probably sum this up as one that was not for me.

Raw, emotional, gripping, realistic telling of what the near future could hold for us.
What a fantastic take on AI and it's consequences to us, it's creators.

Our species think of ourselves as the alpha's, the top of the chain, the clever ones.
This storyline just highlights how much power we actually put into our ever changing and smart technology.

The inability to carry out a simple task such as opening or locking our front doors? The frustration of not being able to pay for food to survive.... all taken away from us in a simple 'click' when that power shuts off.... what would we do?!

This journey following a woman trying to survive and keep her child safe, really highlights the sheer brutality and primal instincts within us humans. Some people panic... some will take the clothes right off your back!

When everything you’ve ever depending on ceases to exist, what would you do?

This book follows Signy, an anxious & music-loving mother trying to navigate a world that has completely broken down with her young son.
The ideas behind this book really hit hard, because it shows us our own dependency on electronics and what is happening to our planet. I feel like this is a situation we could all put ourselves in to some extent, so it felt all too real while I was reading.

While this book isn’t super fast paced or action packed, it is incredibly atmospheric and it really keeps you intrigued throughout.
It is definitely a more character focused book, so if you don’t connect with the main character it may be difficult to follow, but I don’t think that’ll be an issue.

The main issue I had with this book was I wish we had got more insight into what happened and HOW it happened. Since we are only seeing the story from Signy’s point of view, there is a lot of gaps in the story that we don’t know and it can create a little confusion. So, I would have enjoyed a bit more information to connect with and world-building.

It is definitely an interesting dystopian novel and it’s not only entertaining, but helps remind us that we are responsible for this planet and our actions have consequences.

This was an interesting and realistic, though simple and predictable look at how a young mother with a six year old child copes with an apocalypse scenario. In this case, no water, no power, no electronics, and a simultaneous bug-carried disease pandemic. There is a nice progression from weak and docile to much tougher and pragmatic. The son is extremely precocious so the conversation between mother and son wasn't as tedious and you might imagine. The reason for the loss of all the utilities is part of the developing mystery, and it's a good one, but I felt it wasn't developed enough for my liking. Trying not to give too much away, the ending was nice but felt very rushed. Not just in the telling, but time seemed to advance more quickly in an implausible way. The musical language and "influencing" was very intriguing, but puzzling. I guess Signy has a special musical genius, which leads to her survival? Why are the others in her home town selected to be survivors? The science in this story is vague, but the character development is good. Signy's relationship with Matthew is insightful, and her thwarted romantic attachment to her childhood friend. The interactions she has with her neighbor and people she meets ring true, she tries to hoard things for her family as any mother would, but feels guilty about it.

Wouldn't say I'm a major dystopian fiction fan, but loved The Last Party so had hoped I'd enjoy this book....sadly, the tech was all too much for me and I struggled to keep up with the plot developments once they'd passed the human stage. Plot was pacy, but the characters unlikeable and unrealistic...is Jed a child prodigy or do most 6 yr olds have the IQ of Stephen Fry?.
Not for me, especially the last 1/3 where Sig reunites with Gethin - it felt rushed, with a random happy ending.

It was the cover that I first noticed, the rather stark image of what turns out to be two of the main characters Signy and her 6 year old son, Jed. From the blurb I like that the book is a “different” type of “post-apocalyptic” I guess the correct term for this book is apocalyptic, as it is set at the time of the electricity going off, so it’s set as everything is “going to pot” rather being after the “event”.

The book is set in a futuristic London where climate change amongst other things have changed beyond our current day status. In the world in this book there are special drones called pollination drones that have taken over from a decimated bee population. Technology has advanced, everything is worked electronically, from cars, to getting in the door of your home. Society is used to everything being available at the touch of a button or electronic palm reader/keyboard. The main characters are Signy and her husband Matthew, their marriage isn’t great though they put on a front when around friends. They are really only staying together for the sake of their son, Jed. The book begins with Signy taking her son, Jed on one of their familiar biking outings to Queen Mary’s garden and to what Jed refers to as “Fairy Island”. All the roses are artificially made and so have a synthetic smell like acetone, which Signy hates the smell of. Jed enjoys seeing all the different coloured roses, shades of red, pink, oranges and mauves. Of course, Jed doesn’t know what roses smelled like “before”. There are also some hybrid roses which have petals which flash neon, electric blue and onyx. All these roses are pollinated by the pollination drones that have so far replaced the bees.
Signy isn’t relishing the prospect of going out with friends, James, who is Matthew’s best friend and Ava, Signy’s best friend who they match-made between and who are loved up, whereas their own marriage is sadly somewhat stale, that evening and she doesn’t enjoy it all. The restaurant isn’t great. It is that not-so-great evening that Signy is dwelling on whilst Jed takes a pee in the concrete block toilet when they hear a thudding and banging noise on the outer wall. When they investigate, it is a drone continually bashing itself up against the concrete wall. This turns out to be the just the first strange thing that happens. When Signy and Jed get home, Jed slaps his hand on the special palm plate that unlocks the apartment door and as usual he is hungry so Signy heads straight into the kitchen and notices a weird, not good odour coming from the mostly defrosted freezer. Next Signy claps her hands shouting “On” but the lights do not respond. It turns out there is no electricity, and it’s not just a small local issue either. Signy tries to contact Matthew but her call goes straight to voicemail. It soon becomes apparent that technology is no longer working, from the electric for the fridge, the lights, the water filter etc. Signy does manage to get online via her laptop as that is powered by the SOLA roof panels where she reads an article explaining the wide spread power outage and the assurances from the government that everything is in hand and will soon be back to working order.

When Matthew finally gets home, he explains to Signy that the car had died and he’d walked all the way home in the dark! He explains to Signy that the underground, trams and Maglev are all out of action too. Matthew finds an old battery radio and they both listen to find out what is going on. “How do you feel about this situation?’ a broadcaster was asking someone. ‘Oh, not so bad. I’m not worried about owt.’ A woman with a Hull accent. ‘Do you remember the blackouts in the seventies?’‘ “I do.’‘ “And if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?’‘ “I’m a hundred and one.’‘ A hundred and one. Do you worry about being cold tonight? Falling over in the dark?’ Matthew laughs at the radio. Matthew tries to reassure Signy that everything will be back to normal tomorrow. . . . but it isn’t!

Signy goes to local shops, to buy some provisions from the few items left, it’s not long until shops are running out of stock and basic supplies, and people are becoming, nervous, reckless and things soon become dangerous and violent. When Matthew intervenes in a fight, where a man is bullying and being violent towards a woman, he sets off an awful chain of events for his family. As the cover shows Signy and Jed end up undertaking the long and arduous journey to Signy’s mother’s rural home. Signy secretly hopes he childhood best friend Gethin will also have a similar idea of heading to their childhood rural homes. Gethin will know what to do and they can hunt for food and live off the land as they did as kids. It’s whilst travelling that they encounter the worst of society, who don’t care who they rob or hurt in the process. They also witness the increasingly strange behaviour of the drones. It’s almost as if the drones are in charge of changing the world and the people in it, rather than the drones and technology serving the people and their wants and needs.

I really enjoyed the writing style, despite it being quite different to what I usually read. It felt a little odd at times, but that did fit the futuristic feel of the book. Chapters were labelled as what day it is since the “event”. There are some really space-age-type of occurrence’s mentioned yet within the plot they are totally plausible. Then there are the realistic conversations between Matthew and Signy when they swear and their son, Jed tells them off!
I also loved the sarcasm/irony of Signy telling Jed to eat his carrots as they help you see in the dark. Jed says he doesn’t need/want to see in the dark, and Sygny thinks that if the lights don’t come back on he may rethink that!

My thoughts as I finished reading where that I found the book reminded me of a Ray Bradbury book/story that was read to me whilst I was much younger (junior school age). I also liked the theme of the robots/drones allowing those to live who were kind to the planet and other animals. I guess you could call this a cautionary tale perhaps about climate change and alternate futures that rely perhaps a little too much on technology.

Summing up I don’t know how else to describe the book as strange, weird but good. Very Ray Bradbury-esque with some Tale’s Of The Unexpected thrown in too. The book certainly kept me reading to the very end.

This was an interesting book to read, certainly very different than anything else I have read. I like dystopian type books, although it does feel like I don't have to read a book at the moment it seems to me we are living in dystopian times. Thankfully not like the scenario in this book though. I liked the main characters, even though they were not perfect, and made mistakes, but who doesn't. The journey was an interesting one, and so was the overall message within the book .It did just feel a little flat at times which was a shame, but I think it is still well worth a read and worth 4 stars.

This Fragile Earth is set in England in the not too distant future. Technology has advanced, with Artificial Intelligence running many tasks that were once done by humans. The environment is in a very bad place, and humans are struggling to get by.

Because of the reliance on technology, the moment everything switches off, civilisation disappears. Quickly.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book. I've read a lot of dystopian novels, and they follow a similar format - a virus wipes out the population, and the male protagonist finds himself pretty much enjoying being on the run. This Fragile Earth is nothing like this.

What struck me was how very realist this novel is. The behaviours of Sig, our protagonist, are less than honourable at times, but that's normal. Wise holds a mirror up to the reader and aka, "What would you do?" The problems faced by the characters in this book could genuinely happen to humans at any time.

The story is a little slow to begin with, but Wise does well to introduce us to the future world. It's a place similar to ours, but there are hints that all is not well.

Once the pacing changes, we are flying. I felt genuinely uncomfortable when Jed, the prococuous (yet terribly innocent) six-year-old asks his mother tough questions about their lives, and what was happening.

This Fragile Earth is great. If you enjoy dystopian fiction, read this.

Thanks to Susannah Wise, Gollancz, and NetGalley for this copy.

In the near future, a changed London where AI is the way of life, Signy and Matthew lead a difficult life where they've only really stayed together for the sake of their six-year-old son, Jed. Then, the technology that runs their world stops working. Usual methods of paying no longer works, so it's back to physical money where people have it. Phones, smart door locks and electric cars stop working. Electric and gas are cut off, then water stops running and the pollination drones that are vital to the world start behaving weirdly. People go missing and soldiers take to the streets as London is no longer safe.

As the blurb states, "a shocking incident sends Signy and Jed on the run, desperate to flee London and escape to the small village where Signy grew up", which kind of ruins a part of the book as you then know something is going to happen to Matthew. The tagline of "how far would you go to protect your family" should say "how far would you go to protect your child" because it certainly doesn't stretch to protecting Matthew, as she's arguably to blame for his demise.

The story is told from Signy's perspective and follows her thoughts, which has some good advantages later in the book, but to begin with, it didn't always work with some random sentences that just don't flow with the rest of the narrative so it took a bit of getting used to. In the second half of the book though, this style really shines and helps add to the worry and panic of what's happening around her.

That life could go to shit so quickly because of peoples reliance on technology is very plausible. As someone that works in IT, tech is my life. And as we move forward with things and technology becomes smarter, simple things like door locks can become a problem if they are relied on too much. This is also where I have another problem with the book though - everything electronic seems to stop working except for what runs on a battery, so phones will work (and be useless), laptops and you'd think cars would too, but no. All electric cars stop, despite being battery operated. I focused on this a lot, which bothered me.

Then there's Signy. She is not a likeable character. Being in her head, so to speak, you get a sense of what she's like. Yes, she's a mother who just wants to protect her son. But she also lies to him constantly. She tells herself that she's a good person and then a few sentences later she's refusing to give a pregnant neighbour any of the water that she's stored up before relenting and giving her a cup's worth. A random family she bumps into shares their food with her and Jed and she lies about some jelly beans so she doesn't have to share them with the family who were so kind to her. She's impulsive, makes rash decisions, panics a lot (which is understandable) and refuses to accept that Jed has a serious disease until it's almost too late. Constantly calling Jed "love" though really grated on me.

I also struggled with the sons age. Jed is described as being six years old, but at times seems younger and will then speak like he's much older. My nephew was six not long ago and it's not how I imagine a six-year-old to be. Although this is a future world, where things are wildly different technology-wise so I can give it a pass as who knows how their school teaching is. That or he's a genius kid. I had no idea how old he was though and kept flicking between visions of him being younger and older than he actually is - I should have read a bit more of the blurb before reading! Jed however, is the star of the book.

It seems like a lot of negatives, but as the book went on, it got better as you get into her mind more. The random sentences where her mind wonders became part of the frantic nature of the book and showed the stress of the whole situation. It also becomes clear that she has no idea of how much time has passed, as a few times she says that something happened yesterday only for Jed to correct her, which she refuses to accept. It makes looking back on certain parts with a different light than with the initial read. Was day five of the technology blackout really day five, or was it something like day seven? She's not looking at things with a clear mind and that becomes more apparent as you go through the book.

Looking back at it now, it makes a change to read a book where the main character is far from perfect. She has a lot of flaws, even if she can't see them or sees them after she's done or said something that isn't what a good person would do, and it's highlighted by the family they meet on the motorway on their journey to find her mother. They are lovely, a couple with children who all love each other and want to share their food with Signy and Jed because they recognise how the world has gone and that people need food to survive. Her thoughts, good and bad, are laid bare throughout and despite how she's clearly losing her mind as the book progresses, her bond with Jed is abundantly clear through all the problems and emotions.

With the state of Signy's mind at the end, you end up questioning how much of the finale is actually happening and real. Maybe it all is, maybe it isn't. Who knows, and I like that. Signy's problems and unlikeability make the journey through her thoughts worthwhile, especially since Jed is likeable and you feel sorry for him more and more as the book goes on. For the first quarter of the book, I thought I was going to struggle to finish it. The second half I ended up reading in an afternoon. It's a book that if you stick with it, the style grows on you and significantly adds to the story. Sure, there are flaws in the book, but ultimately I'm glad I stuck it out.

Rating: 4/5

As a side, if I'd read this pre-COVID, I'd have said there's no way people would descend into chaos as quickly as they do in the book with panic buying and general dickisness. We all know better now though with how people quickly cleared the shelves in great quantities, leaving people unable to buy food or toilet roll.