Shelter

March 26, 2007
Near-future San Francisco, lashed by climate-change storms, shelters a strange variety of stereotypical beings in Palwick's inflated third exploration (after Flying in Place
and The Necessary Beggar
) of social, technological, religious and ecological themes. Palwick's central conflict, anti-AI Luddites versus big business AI producer MacroCorp, sputters and fizzles somewhere behind two lengthy narratives of the same story—the fate of Nicholas, a brain-damaged child survivor of an African pandemic virus and adopted son of Meredith Walford, the daughter of MacroCorp's leader, Preston Walford, who dies of the virus and is soon "translated" into virtually immortal cyberlife, where he tries to remake society. Meredith and Roberta Danton, who suffers from state-prohibited "excessive altruism," try to save Nicholas from brainwiping with the help of "Fred," a soothing AI neo-Mr. Rogers, who turns into a verbose high-tech house. Younger readers may best appreciate this sprawling book.

Starred review from June 15, 2007
Meredith Walford has spent most of her life avoiding her omnipresent father, multibillionaire Preston Walford, the first human to have his personality posthumously translated into an online presence. When the threads of her life once more become entangled with those of a homeless man whose memory has been legally erased, a young woman whose caring for a damaged student cost her her freedom, and a "smart house" whose personality seems strangely familiar, Meredith finally learns to confront the monsters that have haunted her past. Set in a precarious near-future in which environmental storms make shelter even more of a necessity, where altruism is considered a mental disease and "brainwiping" a desirable cure for antisocial behavior, the latest novel by the author of "Flying in Place" and "The Necessary Beggar" tackles the problematic issue of human interconnectedness with sensitivity and insight. Palwick's characters resonate with believability and her portrayals of minds on the edge of sanity are unforgettable. Highly recommended for libraries of all sizes and for audiences outside the genre.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.