Review: Love, Death, Robots, and Zombies by Tom O’Donnell

In my search for books with less than 20 reviews to read for The January Project, I came across a Kindle freebie for Love, Death, Robots, and Zombies by Tom O’Donnell. The title tells you exactly what to expect, as all four elements are there in the book, and the price was certainly right. But, to be honest, while I love plenty of books with love, death, zombies and/or robots, this wasn’t to my taste.

On the upside, the author created a unique post-apocalyptic world and I particularly enjoyed the complex and multi-layered relationship between humans and robots. The writing is solid, although there were a few missing words here and there that I suspect were part of an uploading issue. First person present tense is not my favorite point of view, but the author used it effectively, particularly in the battle scenes.

The story follows the journey of a fifteen-year old boy, Tristan, who must leave his library home after raiders find it. He sets off to find a new home with his robot dog and Echo, a teen girl who was his childhood friend before she took up with the raiders. En route, they meet other humans, robots and zombies with differing goals and have to decide who is trustworthy and who is not. It’s a good premise, but wasn’t enough to keep me from thinking about other issues with the story.

I have to wonder who was the intended audience? I’m not a big sci-fi reader, so I don’t have a sense if there is an age breakdown or not for materiel intended for teen readers and those for adults. There was almost no swearing, until the last thirty pages, and the shift seemed jarring. Until that point, I would have guessed the audience was tween boys.

What really irritated me as a reader was gender politics. As an adult woman, reading this book made me feel icky. The female characters, of which there were two, may as well have been blow-up dolls. One is beautiful, but has no personality. The other serves the primary purpose of being penetrated. The hero seems to be under the impression this girl wants to be sexually used. We know he’s a hero, because her free wheeling sexuality makes him sad. The hero does not see her as a victim of sexual abuse, so it is never called out an inappropriate behavior. ICK! Double ICK! ICKY, ICK, ICK, ICK! I cannot endorse this book, but the author will probably sell lots of books because of this one review.

This book got me thinking about something I learned in film classes called “The Masculine Gaze.” I suspect there is a literary bias toward “The Feminine Gaze,” particularly in literature aimed at the under 18 set. Maybe some of my dislike for this book stems from my expectations for competent female characters. This bias is a topic I hope to address more fully in a future blog.

In the meantime, I want the books I read to have strong characters, male and female and I want the books my kids read to have strong male and female characters too. Fortunately, there are a lot of great choices out there.

 

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A fear of death

Recently in Virginia a first grader named Ammaria died after suffering anaphylactic shock.  We may never know the precise details, but the gist of the story is this: Ammaria came in contact with peanuts at recess. She fell ill and was rushed to the school clinic. Someone called 911 but when help arrived, it was too late.  Her life could have been saved if she’d been administered an Epi-Pen.

The night I learned of Ammaria’s death, I tended to my daughter’s hives for the fourth time in three days. I dutifully recorded every thing she ate, drank and played with trying to pinpoint where she may have encountered the peanuts most likely responsible for her reaction.  I breathed a sigh of relief knowing she had life saving medicine at school in case the worst happened. Then she told me she first noticed the hives at school.

I reeled on her. I know she heard the panic in my voice. Her eyes grew wide and fearful as I bombarded her with questions, demanding to know if she told an adult and why she hadn’t. I couldn’t believe it.  My daughter, the one who reads labels, refuses to eat anything if she isn’t sure of the ingredient list and tells adults and children in the area that she can’t be near peanuts, also is the one who didn’t speak up because she didn’t want to bother anyone.

My daughter’s hesitation to speak up could bring about her death.

This is the reality of parenting a child with food allergies.  It’s not just a peanut butter sandwich that could kill her, but also a fear of being a nuisance or forgetting an epi-pen, or an entrenched system of laws that prevent a child from receiving life saving medicine.

Here’s the thing. If Ammaria’s school is anything like my daughter’s, there was a drawer full of epi-pens in the nurses office that will be thrown away, unused, at the end of the school year. Any one of those epi-pens that will become trash could have saved Ammaria’s life, but they were prescribed to someone else.  Laws prevented the school from giving her life saving medicine.  If she lived in my school district, Ammaria would most likely be alive today because local law requires Chesapeake Public Schools to keep two doses of unprescribed epinephrine on site.

If Congress gets its act together, we can make sure all children have access to this life saving medicine, at least during the school day.  S. 1884, also known as the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, would require schools to stock this medicine. The cost per school is minimal, but could save lives of children and staff. Remember, epinephrine helps not just those with a reaction to peanuts, but also deadly bee stings and more.   You can learn more through FAAN’s website.  We require defibrillators, why not epinephrine?

Until this law passes, I’ll keep my daughter’s epi-pens handy. And if I see your child in the throes of an anaphylactic fit, I’ll use my pen to save his or her life.  But please, promise not to sue me.