The Bees

February 24, 2014
Dystopia meets the Discovery Channel in this audacious debut novel. Flora 717, a bee born to the lowest social strata at the orchard hive, is different than her kin. Her uncommon earnestness and skill lead her to various jobs—from child rearing to food gathering—and earn her the respect and admiration of her peers. But Flora’s advances also expose her to the hive’s questionable social order and attract negative attention from the elite group of bees closest to the queen. Like Animal Farm for the Hunger Games generation, Paull’s book features characters who are both anthropomorphized and not—insects scientifically programmed to “Accept, Obey and Serve,” but who also find themselves capable of questioning that programming. The result is at times comic—picture bees having an argument—but made less so by the all-too-real violent stakes involved in maintaining beehive status quo (sacrifices, massacres, the tearing of bee heads from bee bodies). Dystopian fiction so often highlights the human capacity for authoritarianism, but Paull investigates bees’ reliance on it: what is a hivemind, after all, if not evolutionarily beneficial thought control? And while Flora 717 may not be the next Katniss Everdeen, she symbolizes the power that knowledge has to engender change, even in nature.

Narrator Orlagh Cassidy's enchanting performance enriches this debut novel about how Flora, a lowly sanitation bee, is able to rise through the caste system to help her hive survive attack, starvation, and destruction to meet a bright new future. Cassidy's vivid, engaging characterizations quickly transport listeners into the busy world of the bees, in which the queen rules and the priestesses maintain the hive mindset. As Flora transcends her destiny, moving up through the ranks to forager, Cassidy expertly conveys the bee's astonishment at each new discovery, curiosity about the outside world, and bravery when defending her sisters against attack. The success of this audiobook lies in Cassidy's respectful yet lively narration, which enables listeners to connect with the story on a number of levels. C.B.L. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine