Children of Morrow, Treasures of Morrow

[lightreads]

Children of Morrow and Treasures of Morrow by H.M. Hoover

3/5. Vintage (so vintage it's not even on Kindle) post-apocalyptic YA. Two pre-teens living in a repressive paternalistic micro-society run away, guided by the voices of other survivors they can hear in their heads.

So I think Children of Morrow might well be the first science fiction I ever read as a child. It's certainly the first that mattered. And it made a hell of an impression on me -- I've been looking for this book again for about twenty years. And here it is, with a sequel!

So anyway, this informed a lot of my narrative inclinations, I think. Probably filled the niche that Mercedes Lackey did for a lot of my peers in that this, too, is about the very special children who are isolated by their specialness and go on an arduous journey to find their true home.

I will say that, as a child, I didn't grasp the true creepiness of this world. It doesn't lie in the post destruction Northern California landscape, as I thought, or in the violence inherent in the society the protagonists flee. No, the creepiness is solidly in the home they flee to, which is cozily nonviolent . . . oh and also deeply and quietly oppressive. I honestly can't tell what Hoover thought she was doing here; much is made of Morrow's superiority in intelligence which, it is implied, explains its lack of gendered power structures. And which also underlies its, um, restrictive breeding program. Awk-ward. I honestly can't tell what is irony and what is genuine enthusiasm for a "better world." A lot less irony going around than I would like, is where I came down.

It's also amazing what you don't remember. I had zero recollection of the rather casual mention of a prior abduction and forced impregnation, I imagine because I didn't understand it at all (see also: Morrow is totally morally superior you guys, ahahahahah. Ha. Ha). The WTF faces I made when that came up were quite epic.

Points for nostalgia. And for the landscape, which pried open bits of my pre-teen brain that had never seen light before. And for young children of power. But yikes.

Comments

[boxofdelights]

There was a time when eugenics was all over SF written by women. And I was reading SF during that time, but I was a kid, and didn't notice it.

I am curious about it now, and I wonder:

What time period was that, exactly?
Is my sense that it was more common in books by women than by men correct? If so, why?
What were they thinking?
Why did it stop?

Would you say that these are books I should include if I make an investigation of the phenomenon?

[lightreads]

Yes, definitely worth putting on your list. General spoilers follow: two societies survived a climate disaster. One lost technology, the other preserved itself by going underground and advancing technologically. And, accidentally, triggered genetic mutations connected to intelligence and telepathy, which they eventually deliberately worked to enhance. Explorers from the tech side eventually found the regressed society and . . . like you do? One abducted a young woman and inseminated her. Forty years later and two generations on, two telepaths come of age in a community of non-telepaths. Morrow, the tech society, is quite disdainful of the "unrestricted breeding" permitted in the regressed society (and by 'unrestricted breeding' I mean a clearly abusive paternalistic system where women are slaves and men gain power through impregnating as many women as possible, so I really don't know where the "unrestricted" exactly comes in). Anyway, the second book is a rather painful exercise in not cultural relativism, and there is a lot of talk of genetics.

[the_rck]

Treasures of Morrow was the first SF book I read that made me go looking for more by that author. My elementary school library had that but not Children of Morrow. It was around 1975, so I had no way to confirm that there actually was an earlier book until I found it at the public library.

Hoover's books generally are dystopias from the point of view of people who don't realize things are broken. I still like the ones I read as a child/tween/teen, but every single one I've approached from about the age of 16 on, I've bounced off of because I keep going, "Wait. Wait. What? That's terrible!" when I look at the societies.

[lightreads]

Exactly the opposite for me -- I got Children on cassette tape from the National Library Service, but had no way of knowing a sequel existed. The copy I read just now is actually a digital download of that same old audio. And I can tell from the catalog numbering that the sequel was recorded just a few years later, and I absolutely could have gotten my hands on it, if I'd known. How did we read before the internet?

[the_rck]

It was pretty obvious from Treasures that there had to be a previous book. There were too many references to important events. I couldn't believe that the story started where Treasures did.

I read The Rains of Eridan shortly after those two books, and I really bonded with that one. It's interesting in that the point of view character for the whole book is an adult. Looking at it now... There's a definite, mostly off screen oligarchy. There's a disease that makes people get really paranoid and mutiny and murder each other, and later, when outside forces come in, there are executions in spite of those people not being fully responsible.

[coffeeandink]

I loved these as a kid, but I have to admit the eugenics went straight over my head. I don't remember that part at all.

[yunitsa]

Oh man, this was also among the first SF I read - I hunted down everything else the local library had by Hoover (which didn't include the sequel), and then everything with the UFO sticker on the spine.

I have no memory of the plot at all. I don't think I'd want to re-read it now...

[cyphomandra]

I read the first one of these and don't remember any of the eugenics! (although - is there a scene where someone's foot gets eaten by a carnivorous snail, or am I totally mixing up memories?). For me it was Hoover's This Time of Darkness that I obsessed over, possibly because the heroine is special because she can read, and because I loved the idea of an underground decaying city. I haven't reread it for years, tho' ...

[lightreads]

Yes, the snail happened! I remembered that too. Come to think of it, that might actually underlie some of my early childhood issues with going in the ocean...

[cyphomandra]

What with that and the bit in Willard Price's South Sea Adventure (terrible series) where a guy gets his foot stuck in a giant clam and drowns slowly as the tide came in I'm not sure how my parents ever managed to get me near a beach!

[norah]

WAIT, I REMEMBER THESE.

...now I am TOTALLY CURIOUS to read them again. Where did you find them?

[lightreads]

The National Library Service digitized the old old cassette I read in the early 90's. Your tax dollars at work, I guess. That option is not immediately available to you, though I'd be surprised if there aren't used copies floating around on Amazon. Back to the NLS, though -- their services are available to persons with "print disabilities," so they may be available to your eldest, depending on his diagnoses. The library is becoming more and more liberal in its coverage, or so I hear.