The Fire Sermon (2015), the first volume in Australian poet Francesca Haig's post-apocalyptic trilogy, received rave reviews. Critics compared it with The Hunger Games and The Road. Her sequel, The Map of Bones, a slow-simmering, character-driven and poetically ambitious nail-biter, promises no less.
Four hundred years in the future, Earth is reeling from the devastation of a nuclear blast and humans are born as sets of twins: one twin is an Alpha (mutation-free) while the other is an Omega (carrying deformities from the nuclear fallout). When one twin dies, the other does, too. Fresh from their ordeal in New Hobart, which concluded the first book, psychic Cass and twins Piper and Zoe are running from the Alpha Council, which has imposed a drastic division between Alphas and Omegas. Zach, Cass's Alpha twin and leader of the Council, has hatched a plot to imprison Omegas in a liquid purgatory, and the three fugitives are desperate to warn others. Resistance forces, however, have begun to shun the trio after tragic deaths and destruction for which the Council publicly blames them. Cass begins to have increasingly intense visions of nuclear devastation and fire, and they threaten to devour her psyche just as the Omegas plan an all-out assault on the Alpha-dominated New Hobart, in an attempt to ensure the survival of the remaining Omegas.
Haig takes the popular ingénue-in-dystopia trope to a new level with nuanced social commentary written with a poetic and literary flow, and a satisfying emotional cliffhanger sets the stage for the final battle. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant