Another Review

 

LarryPNathenson

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique and hopeful perspective on how society might be restored after a nuclear catastrophe

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2022

This is not your typical post-apocalyptic novel. Some of the usual tropes of global warming and nuclear disaster followed by armed conflict, disease and death are presented as background. But the heart of the novel is the delightful tale of a blossoming romance some three centuries later. As the couple try to find their way in a society that doesn’t accept their relationship (though not for the reasons you might expect), the author deftly explains how their society came to be with the recitation of traditional lore and the journal of the eponymous Mother Rainbow which they discover. Along the way you will be encouraged to think about many aspects of our current society – how technology depends as much on the resources available to a culture as on the skill and innovation of the people, how historical memory is malleable and subject to revision as new evidence comes to light, how so many things we take for granted (our calendar, our language, our patterns of family and marriage) might have evolved differently, and how large a society might grow without formal institutions of law, property, and money. You will be entertained, educated, and challenged as you follow the story to its hopeful conclusion.

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Mother Rainbow's Children: The Cave

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August 18, 2033 – AT 6 Autumn Waxing 9 (6.5.9)

I don't know how to write this, but Raven said I need to get it out. Squirrel is dead. So is Dean. So is another man. I shot him.

I guess he saw us when we were in Ukiah and decided to follow us. We saw him walking up the road from the East when we were at the Goat Farm. I guess he didn't see the Village, it is off the road about a half mile so he might not have noticed it. The Goat Farm is right on the road, the road goes by the open fields for more than a quarter of a mile. Anyway, we saw him, Bruce and I did. I called out to Dean, who went to meet him. He looked pretty scary and crazy. I could hear him from the barn where Dean told me to go.

He said his name was Cody and he was told by god to finish killing all the people, then he pulled out a knife and stuck it in Dean!! Georgia was close and carrying a gun. She shot at Cody but missed him. He ran away, but we were all sure he wasn't really gone. Georgia got her dad into the pickup and drove him up to the Village. The rest of us got guns and set up a watch line around the Goat Farm. I was on the South side, away from the road. I could see Squirrel a ways away from me on top of a rock to my left and I could see Bruce a ways away from me to my right. About a half hour later John and Ronald and Champak came back with guns and extra ammunition. They filled in the watch line. About another two hours later I heard Squirrel scream. I looked over and Cody was leaning over him on the rock. I took aim like Anthony taught me and shot him in the head. Blood spurted everywhere and I puked.

Cody broke Squirrels neck. Raven couldn't save Dean. She said he was bleeding inside and she didn't have the tools to do the surgery he needed. We buried all three of them at the Goat Farm, a little ways past the pond. I asked if I could speak words over them. I wrote them down first and this is what I said.

“Today we lost two of our friends. They both survived the catastrophes and the Long Dark Time and they made it to this, the Fifth year of the After Times. Cody survived all of that too. I did not want to kill him, but I had to. He wanted to kill us all because he was wounded in his soul. I don't hate him, I respect him for surviving. We all know that was not easy and that most people did not survive. We have to go on. I honor Dean, who helped us a lot. He was a good builder and a good farmer and a good dad to Georgia and Robert. I honor Squirrel. He was a little boy but he not only survived he kept his brothers and sisters alive all by themselves. He was always ready to help and he took the responsibility of a much older person. Do not hate Cody. Honor him for surviving, pity him for his soul wounds. We are few and we need more of us if we are to survive for long. We also have to leave behind the war and feuding that destroyed the world in the Before Times.”

Then I cried and we all cried and Bruce and Thomas and Anthony all held me until we were all cried out.

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Mother Rainbow's Children: The Cave

 “The World went to Hell. From greed, from stupidity, from valuing artificial things more than the nature around them, our ancestors destroyed the world. Great cities, larger than we can even imagine; great nations spanning continents; great business enterprises encompassing the whole world; communications that circled the globe and even had equipment in space above us; medical knowledge able to fix broken hearts, broken kidneys, broken lungs, and broken minds; all of it gone because they had to fight, they had to burn oil and coal, they had to make plastics, they had to dam the rivers, they had to cut down the forests, they had to hunt animals to extinction, and all of that was more important than survival. All of that was more important than caring for each other, looking after the troubled, taking care of the natural world, or simply being in it.

“Hell began with a storm. The storms were stronger because they burned so much coal and oil that the air was full of carbon and soaked up the sun's' heat. This storm struck the heart of The United States, at the great city that ruled the country of which we were once a part. The storm struck and rained havoc on that city and all the countryside around it. The government was crippled. When the volcano erupted in our state and started all the woods to flame, the government could not respond. When another storm struck the huge cities on the Great River, the government could not respond. When states in the center of the north declared their independence, the government could not respond. When wars broke out across the seas, threatening all that existed, The United States government could not respond.

“The weapons they used were terrible. Whole cities were gone in a flash of light, searing heat, and a blast that turned rubble into glass. The United States had the most such weapons, but they were not in the wars because they were collapsed. There were still enough weapons to end civilization. They filled the skies with darkness, a poison darkness that killed silently. The Long Darkness lasted for years. Only survived those who found shelter from the darkness, with food that was sheltered and water that was sheltered. Each survivor huddled in their own cave, their own womb, awaiting the rebirth of the world.

“Mother Rainbow and Uncle waited along Calm Tree Road. They read books from the Before Time. They played games from the Before Time. They made tools and they ate their stores. All alone they waited. In Rainbow Cave they waited with a spring of clean water and a store of clean food. Then, one day, they looked out of the cave and it was Dark no more. They walked out of the cave and looked to the sky and it was clear. They fell to their knees and thanked the Spirit for the Clear Day. Each year we also fall to our knees and thank the Spirit for that Clear Day and for every one since.”

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I just got another review!

Thank you Mr. Weibel

Jan 19, 2022

What a delight. The best post apocalyptic garden of Eden tale you will read this year. A pleasant rendition of classic taboos and ‘new’ social mores… all while canning peaches and hunting boar. A banned book instant classic. Enjoy.

by Derek WeibelReport this review

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Mother Rainbow's Children: The Cave

 

September 6, 2033 – AT 6 Autumn Waxing 27 (6.5.27)

This is one of the news stories I found in the Willits Library:

[pasted in the book]

Hurricane Maria Stuns Chesapeake Bay

August 25, 2025

AP – Raleigh, NC

On Sunday about 3:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time Hurricane Maria made landfall at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. At the point of landfall Maria was rated by the National Hurricane Center as Category 5 with wind speeds recorded as high as 163 MPH. Communications with the affected area have been poor all day but reports of major damage are coming through hard line internet connections. Storm surges in excess of 30 feet have been reported along tributary rivers of Chesapeake Bay including the Potomac, which flows by Washington, DC and the Patapsco River on which the City of Baltimore is situated. Many residents of Washington and Baltimore had moved inland due to warnings from the National Hurricane Center but both cities still have significant residents in the way of the storm. The US Senate voted against adjourning as the Republican Filibuster of the Budget moved into day 31. No communication from Capitol Hill has been made since about one hour after Maria made landfall, at which time the Senate was still in session as Senator Louis Arbuckle (R Kansas) read the 2012 White Pages from Kansas City, Kansas into the Congressional Record..

Scattered reports indicate that a ship has foundered near the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Station, 40 miles east of Washington, DC. Those reports indicate that the ship may have somehow damaged the power plant. No reliable reports of the damage have been confirmed.

This is when the Hurricane hit. They didn't know all the stuff that had happened, just bits and pieces. The Senators were being so stubborn in their arguments they couldn't get themselves out of the way of the storm. Ronald says a lot of them may have died that day. They were so STUPID!

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Mother Rainbow's Children: The Cave

 "Before the Tribulation driving up Highway 5 from Grants Pass to Roseburg was about an hour's drive. Good road, rest stops, a little windy, a lot of up and down. Now it was an obstacle course. Cars abandoned or crashed into each other. Road trains mangled and blocking the road across all the lanes. Human remains in many of the vehicles. It was a nightmare. If we weren't fleeing from the nightmare in Grants Pass it would have dissuaded us from our trek, but we knew that there was no reprieve behind us. It took us about 10 hours to go 68 miles. It was dark by the time we got to Roseburg. I think it was late May, so that had to be after 9. We couldn't see much. Naturally, there were no city lights. We found an abandoned church and slept inside, feeling somehow safer in a House of God."

"Just before dawn we were woken by a gunshot as one of our sentries died near a smashed window. We all grabbed rifles and took positions where we could shoot back. There were about 40 men outside. They were in worse shape than we were. I could see signs of radiation poisoning in several of them (I recognized it because I had seen a lot of it first hand very recently). They all looked starving and desperate. We started shooting back and my focus just became what was in front of me. Fire, duck, shoot again, look out for the guy sneaking behind the shed over there, shoot again, pull the trigger and curse because the magazine is empty. Reload, shoot again. I don't know how long the fire-fight lasted. It might have been 10 minutes. It might have been an hour. It felt like days. Eventually they ran away, realizing we had numbers and fire-power, I guess. I know that two bullets I fired killed men I didn't know. I know that two of my friends were dead and several more were wounded. The women patched them up as well as they could. We took a look outside. Fred took a team on the west side of the church, I took a team on the east side. I heard one gunshot from the west and we went running. Fred said that one of the attackers was still alive and tried to shoot him, so he killed him. The other boys with him looked pretty scared, of Fred. They didn't say anything, but I got the idea that Fred didn't wait for the guy to pick up a gun."

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Mother Rainbow's Children: The Cave

 February 3, 2033.

My 9th Birthday, 5 years to the day from when the sky was clear and blue. I suppose I ought to say who I am and why I have this journal. My name is Sarah. My parents died during the Nuclear Winter (that's what Uncle Ronald called the Dark Time), along with pretty much every one else we knew. I don't have a lot of memories of all that. Uncle Ronald isn't really my Uncle, but he knew my parents pretty well. We lived in a cabin on Ronald's parents property here, near Comptche. Ronald used to visit from Sacramento because he was working on some sort of project for the Mendocino County Museum. That's when he met my parents and helped them move to his parent's place. Anyway, when the bad times started, Ronald moved here to stay near his folks and to get away from the city. When people started dying of the Poisons, Ronald and I were the only ones left. Ronald was staying in this stone cabin and he took me in. We have our own spring in the cave in back and Ronald brought all of the canned food and well packaged food stores he could find here. We had a toilet, water, food, mini-hydro for lights and the hot plate. We just stayed inside for a couple of years until the sky was blue again. Today Ronald gave me this journal. He found a stack of them down in Mendocino Village. He wants me to start recording history. He says that what I say will be important years from now, cause things are starting over and he says I'll be one of the founders. He said to write as well as I know (he's pretty fussy about that, being a professor and all). I guess that's enough for starters.

Bobcat read it again, and then again. If he remembered right, Mother Rainbow's name was Sarah before she changed it. He was sitting in a cave, reading a journal by a little girl named Sarah who survived the Dark Times with her Uncle. Could this indeed be Rainbow Cave!? Could this be the very journal of Mother Rainbow's!? Bobcat kept reading. He could not stop himself.

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Mother Rainbow's Children: The Cave