The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (as Claire North) nominated for the BSFA Award for Best Novel Notes From The Burning Age is the eighth novel by best-selling, award-winning British author, Claire North. Thirty-one-year-old Ven Marzouki, sometimes Kadri Tarrad, freely admits he is a traitor. He trained to be a priest for the Temple, translating documents in archaic languages salvaged from the Burning Age to be assessed for heresy but, unappreciated for his hard work and expertise, he begins illegally selling classified information. This might be true…

In North's pure and early Eden, there is a fire. An accident that consumes the forest surrounding a village. The three children run. One of them dies. The other two — Ven and Yue — survive. In the midst of the conflagration, one of them (Ven) sees the Kakuy of the forest. He watches it die. The other (Yue) sees only fire. The plot follows Ven’s exploits as a spy for the Council and a race between him and his unknown counterpart, spying within the Council for the Brotherhood, as to which will be revealed first. It’s an exciting story full of sharply drawn characters and richly imagined detail of a damaged world. North has created a world that works, that lives and breathes and suffers and dies, and populated it with characters who are all flawed, all broken, and struggling to make something better. I could have gotten over that, though, had I been drawn in by the plot and characters. But unfortunately, I found the pacing rather slow. While the writing is beautiful, I also found the naturalistic descriptions and political and moral philosophizing somewhat tedious to plod through. Ven and Yue are interesting foils, and North delivers some unexpected and affecting twists in their interweaving story lines. But I still didn’t feel much attachment to them. Both are rather guarded--attributable to their childhood trauma, espionage activities, and likely, North’s desire not to blow their covers (i.e. her plot twists) too early. Worldbuilding isn’t purely about the place either. The culture of the people has to be depicted well for the world to seem real. There are lots of natural spots and towns, and few larger cities. Technology is not abundant. Political tensions are high as political groups that want access to information are gaining momentum and voice. In the midst of all this, we have Georg who seems like the orchestrator of a number of things that go on in the city. Ven ultimately ends up working as his assistant. On Strong CharactersBy the time Brotherhood operative, Georg Mestri finds him, he’s working in a cellar bar. Vien’s Justice and Equality Brotherhood is opposed to the Council, believing that humanity can best be served by reviving the fuels, the resources, the industry of the Burning Age. Temple, on the other hand, recommends giving thanks for the land, the sea, the sky, espouses being in harmony with the earth, doing nothing to rouse the kakuy, whose wrath spares none. This conflict fuels the action of the book, of those feeling only a few deserve the best of technologies, comforts and opportunities, as exemplified by the Brotherhood, and many others have a strong belief in community, of being mindful of one’s affect on the land and on others. There is an organization called the “Brotherhood” who wants to break free from the reclusive rule of the monasteries, who want to return to humanity’s former state of knowledge, including the atomic bomb, strip mining, and sub-prime mortgages. They want to free humanity from the Kakuy. Their leader Georg has access to heretical data passed to him by a spy. Here Ven comes into play, because Georg needs him to validate and translate the data.

When Ven is recruited, the Brotherhood is gaining ground in the Assembly. Translating forbidden texts for Georg, Ven realises he must have a spy in the Council supplying these, and it begins to look like war between the provinces is inevitable. One of my observations was that for a utopia to function, there still has to be a hierarchy and structure. Everyone had agreed that the Temple had the power to limit the circulation of material. People cannot just live happily and in harmony without standards and law to abide by. While this does not come off as an imbalance of power to someone who has always lived in that world by those very rules, Georg and the Brotherhood saw it as such and are willing to do anything to get a hold of the information being kept from them. Reading Experience Summary This is an interesting take on post-apoc environmental collapse and rebuilding story. I’ve read two other novels by the author – The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and Touch, and I liked both. This one is in somewhat different vein, but still quite good. When things are good, we find ourselves wondering - what more? And what will I lose if I do not get more now? It is a trait that pushed mankind across the oceans and out into space - what is out there, what else? It is one of our most beautiful qualities and has for millennia served us well in finding new ways to live better. But like all things, it is neither good nor bad, but what we make of it."

Customer reviews

From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future… Everything after is a dance: Ven and Georg and Yue, trying to start a war, trying to prevent one, trying to protect the world, trying to free it. As a whole, Notes is a novel of cycles, of transitions. It is about the terrible cost of disposability, the burden of secrets, the power of faith and recycling. But more than that, it is a top-tier spy story, a very physical war story, a mature love story, unromantic in the way that it doesn't lie or add glitter to anything. It begins as an idyllic homage to A Canticle For Leibowitz, becomes a Cold War mole-hunting LeCarre pastiche and ends in an Ayn Rand-vs-Margaret Atwood philosophical cage match. Cycles within cycles, all of them brilliant, horrifying, cool.

When I first trained to be a spy, I would stand in front of the mirror and remember how it felt when the forest burned and the river roared, reach out for Vae and miss her flailing hand, don’t let go, don’t let go, and tell myself, It’s your fault. In time, I could do this, and meet my own eyes as the fire raged in the cauldron of my mind, and see no flush of colour nor any change in my breath, but was merely the mountain against which the wind must break.” Notes from the Burning Age, Kindle edition, chapter 19, location 4057 Which is weird, sure. Who doesn't want to abandon a nightmare? But Notes is compelling because it is beautiful. Because it is a mess, skillfully rendered, with a recognizable past (our own) and a believable present witnessed primarily by three characters who aren't just living through it, but actively shaping it.It was about the time of the great migrations, when all the nations began to splinter like the burning bough and the wars of water and grain came upon the lands, that the kakuy woke. First they rose from the skeletons of the ocean reefs, glistening bone and acid breath. Then they climbed from the shattered mines, and their eyes were embers of coal and their feet broke the towns beneath their feet. Then they came from the sky itself, upon thunder and lightning they blazed, tearing down the monuments of man and bidding the earth swallow whole the sacrileges of the Burning Age.

Notes from a Burning Age is a stunning achievement. The stories included clash, intersect, conflict, and betray each other for precedence. The sheer lyricism of CN's writing softens somewhat the harshness of the dystopian narrative of subversion and betrayal in a future jostling to organize itself after the great burnings. It remembers me too much of Miller’s “Canticle for Leibowitz” (review), and not in a good way. I’d recommend rather to read that one. Some necessary context for my reading experience: This isn't the first journey I've been taken on by Claire North. I've loved, on more than one occasion, both The Sudden Appearance of Hope and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. I've read Touch too but merely liked it. All these stories have an element of the superhuman to them and that reading history set me up with expectations for Notes From The Burning Age that affected my enjoyment of this story.Some technology like solar panels, wind turbines, or information technology have survived. People might have heard of combustion engines, but fear to use them because the Kakuy could wake up from their slumber at any time. Instead, they use bicycles mostly. But I swear, the thing that hooked me so deep was the simple presence of it all. In Notes North has created a world that works, that lives and breathes and suffers and dies, and populated it with characters who are all flawed, all broken, and struggling to make something better. It felt seamless, like it was written in a day, maybe two, coming out whole and smooth and perfect on the very first try.