Awards

• Winner of LIANZA Children's Book Awards: Esther Glen Award 2007.
• Winner of LIANZA Children's Book Awards: Esther Glen Medal for Junior Fiction 2007
• Winner of LIANZA Children's Book Awards: Esther Glen Medal for Junior Fiction 2007.

Overview

Fourteen-year-old Anax thinks she knows her history. She'd better. She's sat facing three Examiners and her gruelling five-hour examination on the 2077 Great War has just begun. If she passes, she'll be admitted into The Academy - the elite institution that runs her utopian society.But Anax is about to discover that for all her learning, the history she's been taught isn't the whole story. And that The Academy isn't what she believes it to be.Anax's examination leads us into a future where ancient - eternal - philosophical questions have dramatically collided with the march of technology, where just what it means to be human is up for debate, and where the concealed stain of an Original Sin threatens the very existence of her Brave New World.

Full Product Details

9781847248992

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Reviews

Dystopian vision of a future Earth almost wholly engulfed by environmental catastrophe.New Zealand author Beckett's slim first novel is a curious mix of science fiction, Platonic dialogue and An Inconvenient Truth. The story is framed around the four-hour oral examination of Anaximander (aka Anax), a female student who hopes to enter the Academy, home to the elite of what is now a rigidly stratified society. By the 2050s, we learn early on, the planet was overwhelmed by war, terrorism and global dust storms, prompting an entrepreneur named Plato to create an island haven in the Southern Hemisphere protected by a Great Sea Fence. Interlopers attempting to enter were killed on sight for fear of an invading plague, and Anax's exam focuses on a case of a crack in the system. Adam Forde was a soldier who in 2075 spotted a girl in a boat approaching the barrier and held his fire. Beckett relates this back story in question-and-answer format, with Anax responding to her three examiners. He avoids the danger of an overly talky narrative, however, by incorporating movielike holograms into Anax's examination, which work to illustrate key moments in Forde's life. This enables the author to add some descriptive passages to ease the rigors of the novel's more philosophical second half, focusing on the interactions between the imprisoned Forde and Art, a robot empowered with high-end artificial-intelligence technology. Art is so empowered, in fact, that he's a little smug about it - he routinely argues for his superiority over mortal, emotional humans. The book is clearly making a statement about the consequences of environmental neglect. Indeed, Beckett is stronger with philosophical fare than with plotting - the book's final twist is old hat. But he's earned the right to deploy a pulp-sci-fi cliche or two - his conception of a broken world and the role technology plays in it is convincing.A cannily constructed portrait of a global worst-case scenario. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Bernard Beckett, born in 1967, is a high school teacher based in Wellington, New Zealand, where he teaches Drama, Mathematics and English. Genesis was written while he was on a Royal Society genetics research fellowship investigating DNA mutations. Genesis won the Young Adult Fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2007 and the 2007 Esther Glen award.Becky Wright trained at Bristol University and Mountview. Theatre work includes 'The Witches' and appearing as Kate in 'The Taming of the Shrew', and radio performances include Becky Cranford in the BBC Radio Drama Series 'Children of Witchwood'. She is currently playing Nic Hanson in 'The Archers'. This is her first audiobook.

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