In the Drift
★★★★★
Swanwick’s alternate history where the three-mile island disaster creates the Drift - a nuclear wasteland home to an abandoned population in post-collapse America. A balkanised society is rebuilt amongst the radiation, seeking autonomy while being squeezed on all sides.
We’re introduced to Keith and follow his coming-of-age awakening to the deception, politics, and cruel ritual that runs the world at the edge of the Drift. This plays out through a series of experiences as he comes to terms with his naivety and lack of agency, and ultimately knuckles down becoming part of the establishment.
Then we switch to Samantha - a vampire who can see radiation. An older Keith now in a position of power, moves to a secondary role and the narrative dips into fantastical territory as mutations take hold in the population. As they travel through the Drift, you get a deep feel for the impact on the wildlife, the people, and the resulting subsistence society that is barely hanging on. At times, the politics and motivations between the factions were less than clear as things were implied that I needed to be more explicit. Ultimately this feels like a bridging story - a journey through the wasteland establishing the political forces at play, painting a graphic picture of what’s at stake, and setting up Sam’s daughter to take the lead for the third act.
Victoria leads the Drift resistance as a messianic figure, while Keith attempts to use the people of the Drift for his own gain. An increasingly desperate resistance undertakes a morally challenging plan to decide the war once and for all, raising tension between its military leader and Victoria’s mystical approach, and leading to an emotional resolution that had me gripped, adding a whole star to my rating!
The flawed characters of the novel are convincingly realised, but it suffers from being a fixup novel - just as a character feels rounded they move to the background and we switch focus to a new protagonist. Swanwick is an excellent writer and I would have loved to have seen this as a fully realised novel - I’ll be seeking out more of his work.
