Overshoot

By Mona Clee

Book Overview

Eighty-year old Moira Burke had expected life to end with nuclear war'simply and quickly. But by 2032, global warming had become the real threat. And a bold new experiment called ?The Green Man? had become the only hope...'Clee writes beautiful, poetic prose about hard and dangerous events.' ?Robert J. Sawyer, Nebula Award Winner ? Environmental themes and disaster-oriented plots have been especially popular in recent thrillers and films ? ?Clee's knowledge of history is encyclopedic, her interpretation of world events fresh and unexpected.' ?Julia Ecklar, author of Regenesis

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441005098
• ISBN13: 9780441005093
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Ace Books
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful book: believable, terrifying, great characters.

This is a wonderful book! I was so absorbed in it, I stayed up half the night reading, (the first time I have done that since becoming a parent). The premise is totally believable: the greenhouse effect is happening, and by 2032 the world is a disaster. The story takes place in Berkeley - which has not escaped the heat or other changes. Clee manages to create an 80 year old woman narrator that even very young people will identify with: she is spunky, with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor and totally down to earth. There is no dogma or preachiness or political correctness in this book, and the technological deus ex machina at the end reveals an author with a really complex and nuanced view of technology and nature. Much of the book is just about hard, day to day, real life, perhaps that is why the book is so terrifying. It's a novel of ideas that touches on everything from genetic engineering, to computers, to witchcraft. It woke me up!

Very entertaining and thought-provoking!

I couldn't put this book down. Clee's future world is very believable. Her use of comtemporary political and social events as well as those in recent history really pull the reader into the story. Her main characters experienced what we experience today. This brings the characters close to our lives and makes it seem we could experience what they experience in the future. I found the future technology very believable, especially the genetic technology.

Social Science Fiction at Its Best

I read Overshoot after hearing about the author's first book, Branch Point. While Branch Point is very entertaining - a romp through recent history - Overshoot is a deeper, more serious, ambitious book. Take a group of people who are now in their 30s and 40s, and move them ahead in time to the year 2032, take the concerns and fears about global warming that are in the headlines now, put them together, and you have an angry, moving, wonderfully written book that showcases what social science fiction is supposed to be about. This is a future that people alive today may live to see. Yet, unlike so many "Apocalypse" books, Overshoot is not a downer. The characters suffer through some very disturbing rough times, but the ending is upbeat and hopeful, not sugar-coated or airy-fairy, and is plausible in the light of current advances in gene therapy and gene manipulation. And it isn't justone more example of an end-of-the-world novel where at the last minute the writer pulls a rabbit out of a hat and magically makes everything okay. This is a big book with big issues, not your usual escapist stuff.

On the cutting edge

The appeal of "Overshoot" is not to lovers of technology, this book not being classic genre SF. Rather, it is a spiritual paean to the earth and to the enlightened nature that hides within each of us like a pearl buried in the sand (or, in some cases, in a dung heap). The danger of global warming, ostensibly the theme of the novel, is merely the background: the true theme is the transformation of human nature that is entailed, requiring of the reader that he or she question why such a transformation is not already occurring, since the creation of a sane, livable society necessitates it. The journey of the main characters from their various starting points is both a pilgrimage and a mirror of the unfolding happening in the world as a whole. Those interested in nature-centered spirituality will particularly like the character of the Wiccan high priestess, Rhiannon. To my knowledge, this is the first realistic and sympathetic portrayal of a Neopagan character in SF, or even in fantasy, the latter genre often featuring characters bearing little resemblance to the real article, however sympathetically portrayed. Of course, in a novel set against the backdrop of an imperiled planet, a Pagan priestess would naturally (no pun intended) be on the front lines of the action. If the book has a shortcoming, it is that the progress of technology over the next 35 years is glossed over. Aside from the changes wrought by the overshoot itself, there is little attempt to grapple with the changes likely to be born of scientific progress. In an ordinary genre SF title, this flaw might well be fatal. In "Overshoot," it is necessary, because the book attempts to deal with the reactions of people as they are today to events likely to occur in the future as a result of our past and present folly, and dealing with new technology in the detailed vision appropriate to genre SF would both distract from that mission and, more importantly, render it less achievable. The end result is an imperfectly-accurate depiction of the future world, but all the more poignant a lesson for the present. If you care about the planet, and especially if you feel the sacredness of nature, buy this book.

Thoughtful, serious yet very entertaining!

As far as I know, this is the only sf book currently in print which envisions what will happen to people alive today if global warming turns out to be the problem so many scientists fear it will be. While the more serious moments make the bookt believeable, the ending gives us hope. The characters are three-dimensional, and I loved the animals!