Lake at the End of the World

In 2025, in the wake of global environmental devastation, the members of one surviving family encounter a teenaged boy from a mysterious clandestine community.

The end of the world is not a place but a time not too far in the future, a premise that is not as farfetched today as it would have seemed a decade ago. The world is practically dead, because its ecology has collapsed. At Redfern Lake, in Australia, preserved as a wilderness, live Evan Redfern, an ornithologist, his wife Beth and their daughter Diana. One day, Diana stumbles across a young man, Hector, escaped from a community that has lived for decades in a cavern deep below the lake, unbeknownst to Evan and Beth. The community's megalomaniac leader, the Counselor, had virtually kidnapped bright young scientists to found an underground utopia. Hector's narrative alternates with Diana's; at first, because Diana's thoughts are printed in italic, this looks confusing, but the device makes the story more immediate and the characters easier to identify with. When Beth falls ill and needs medicine, Diana and Hector brave the Counselor in his cavern and fall foul of his plot to destroy the lake. But all ends well, and when the Redferns are joined by many from underground, there's hope for humanity's survival and the earth's renewal. A satisfying work of future fiction. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Grade 7-10-- The 21st Century begins with the signing of a worldwide nuclear disarmament treaty thought to be earth's salvation; unfortunately disaster and decimation arise from a combination of nuclear accidents, toxic oil spills, and experimentation with dangerous herbicides, which cause everyone to die. In the year 2025 Diana and her parents, living on a farm beside beautiful, self-preserving Redfern Lake, have had no contact with any other settlements in a year and realize that they are probably the last of all humans. One day Diana stumbles across Hector, a boy who has been part of a secret society living underground since 1968, who just happens to have followed his dog out of the underground maze of tunnels. The lives of Diana, Hector, and Redfern Lake follow an intertwining course from that initial meeting. The Eden-like setting of Redfern Lake, an oasis in a devastated world, offers a plausible rationale for Diana's family to still be alive. Reading of their survival techniques is akin to reading a modern version of Swiss Family Robinson ; although rescue is not possible, the discovery of this secret society, a handpicked assortment of scientists, artists, musicians, cooks, etc., grants Diana's family hope for companionship in their isolated world. The characters, dialogue, and plot in this science fiction adventure are all top-rate. --Pam Spencer, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Fairfax County, Va.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.