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Science Fiction Fantasy Blog

Our Discussion of The Rending and the Nest by Kaethe Schwehn

When ninety-five percent of the world’s population disappears for no apparent reason, Mira does what she can to create some semblance of a life: She cobbles together a haphazard community named Zion, scavenges the Piles for supplies they might need, and avoids loving anyone she can’t afford to lose. Four years after the Rending, Mira has everything under control. Almost.

Then Mira’s best friend, Lana, announces her pregnancy, the first in this strange world and a new source of hope for Mira. But Lana gives birth to an inanimate object—and soon other women of Zion do, too—and the thin veil of normalcy Mira has thrown over her new world begins to fray. As the community wrestles with the presence of these Babies, a confident outsider named Michael appears, proselytizing about the world outside Zion. He lures Lana away and when she doesn’t return, Mira has to decide how much she’s willing to let go in order to save her friend, her community, and her own fraught pregnancy. Goodreads

Below are a sampling of our comments:

  • I enjoyed it – it sticks with you and raises a lot of “what if?” questions
  • It was a different take on post-apocalyptic stories
  • The little communities are working things out for themselves – I loved some of the social interactions and the stories of how the members of Zion found each other – like Talia.
  • Some of the phrases and wording were very good – “No one pays attention to crazy”
  • Everyone kept their pasts to themselves in the community – for some it was a chance to reinvent who they were
  • The community made all visitors tell their stories because they needed entertainment and information. Same with the zoo’s “watchers” and “inhabitants” – it filled a need and fueled the search for meaning or understanding
  • The piles were so random – what survived and what didn’t, parts of houses, 5% of the population, how was it determined?
  • There was no sun or rain, a constant temperature, few animals, new fruit – how much do people really need to survive?
  • The object babies tied the mothers to the past and only by giving the babies to a nest were the mothers able to inhabit the present… what did the men have to allow them to release the past? The male characters were not as well-developed.
  • The ending was unsatisfying – we were not given any answers to what caused the rending – why not let the readers know even if the characters don’t?
  • It made sense that the writer was a poet and so didn’t lend any clarity to the story.

Please add any additional thoughts or comments you have about The Rending and the Nest. We gave this title the codes AGE, CUL, FEM, DOM & LIL with an average rating of 4.0.

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