Life and Times of Michael K – J M Coetze

Michael K, at thirty-one years old, has survived a difficult childhood (institutionalised with a hare lip and a slow mind) and early adulthood to eventually hold down a job in the parks and gardens department in Cape Town, South Africa.

But now the government of the city and the whole country is collapsing under civil war and, to make matters worse for Michael, his sick mother needs him to look after her. With unrest on the streets and squalid urban living conditions, Mrs K wants to leave town and travel up-country to her childhood homestead of which she has fond, if rose-tinted, memories. That is a big ask for Michael what with travel restrictions, roads filled with soldiers, militia and guerrillas, and a woman who cannot walk more than a few steps. But he is resourceful and fixes up a sort of barrow and wheels his mother off.

His survival skills are tested by the military and civil authorities and he endures hospitalisation, incarceration, isolation and interrogation; not to mention cold, thirst and hunger.

Most of the narrative is from Michael’s point of view, with a brief contribution by a doctor who becomes interested to the point of obsession with K’s case and his outlook on life and death. It provides a useful, articulate, counterpoint to Michael’s less analytic outlook.

It is a spare and haunting read that leaves the reader despairing for Michael’s well being and sharing the doctor’s bemusement at Michael K’s self-appointed role as a long-suffering but perennial survivor.

The Wall – John Lanchester

The world has changed. Now, after The Change, people in areas worst affected are even more desperate to get to those places less so – like Britain. Britain’s answer is The Wall that stretches the whole coastline and the Defenders who man (and woman) it with searchlights and rifles.

Defenders are conscripted. Everyone has to do their two years on the Wall; their tour of duty increased for any lapse of attention or breach of discipline. Twelve hour shifts, two weeks on two weeks off, one of which is for training and the other leave. But where to go for your leave? Back to your parents who have caused the mess, the Change, and put you on the Wall?

We join Kavanagh on his first day, experience the cold, the tedium, the fear of action that would break the tedium, looking out for those trying to get in over the Wall. As for those Others trying to get in, they are getting increasingly desperate and well organised. There are rumours of inside help, traitors at work.

And another thing, for every Other who breaches the wall and gets away, a responsible Defender is sent the other way, ‘put to sea’ and abandoned to their fate.

The book is refreshingly compact and is convincing in its dystopian outlook. The mind numbing routine and the interludes of frantic action are nicely balanced. No spoilers, but there are also tastes of life either side of the Wall.

The Martian – Andy Weir

When Mark Watney gets left, presumed dead, on Mars when the rest of the crew abandon their mission in the face of an overwhelming sandstorm, things don’t look good. Okay, so he is alive through a fluke of circumstance, and the base (“the HAB”) is intact with all life supporting systems operational, but the comms dish has blown away and there is no way of letting anyone on Earth or the receding spaceship know that he needs rescuing.

The next scheduled mission to Mars will not arrive for four years and will land over three thousand kilometres away. His food supply he can stretch to last a year. No, things don’t look good. But he is resourceful and mentally tough and a botanist with a good grasp of basic science and engineering, so he gets to, tackling one job at a time, staying alive, thinking things through, counting his assets.

He has got a couple of Mars rover buggies, some emergency pop-up tents, five spare space suits, and half a dozen potatoes meant for Thanksgiving supper. He survives, buys time, waits, makes plans.

Then back on Earth, someone monitoring satellite images notices things at the Mars base have changed position. Who is moving them? It can only be an alive Mark Watney. All resources are diverted to come up with a rescue plan that seems impossible to execute before he starves to death.

The narrative now toggles between the fight for survival on Mars and the efforts to launch a rescue mission from Earth. Watney is tested to the limit as every crisis overcome is followed by a new problem to solve. On earth the best brains on the planet scheme and model options, none guaranteed to succeed.

It makes for compulsive reading. Watney’s log has enough science to convince and its breezy tone gets the reader on board, urging him on to a testing climax.