Children of the Dust
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The Children of the Dust (ISBN 0-06-023739-2) is an apocalyptic and End of the World Fiction book written by Louise Lawrence. The book details a family history across three generations during the aftermath of a nuclear war and the horror it entails. The story covers in detail the three characters who through their actions are the last hope of the homo sapiens race.
The book focuses on the horrors that occur after the dropping of the bombs. The survivors of the blast must suffer through radiation, nuclear winters, feuds between rival groups and mutation. The new race, homo-superior, have adapted to the loss of the ozone layer and the extra radiation to become the dominant species on the planet.
The book is broken up in to three sections for each generation. The novel offers some hope that humanity could survive the horrors of war (and in fact the current age) to form a new world.
Contents |
[edit] Major characters
Sarah Harnden is the focus of the first section. She witnesses the outbreak of the war. She is a young teenage girl living on the outskirts of Gloucestershire, England. She is rushing home from school when the bombs begin to fall. The book details her struggle to make a life inside the family home after the initial exchange of nuclear weapons between the superpowers. In the end the family realizes they have no future. Sarah and her stepmother, Veronica, focus their efforts to ensure Catherine the youngest daughter has chance in the new world after the war. Before Sarah dies, she leaves Catherine with an old man who has the necessary survival setup and shelter to surive the coming nuclear winter.
Ophelia is the focus of the second section: Bill Harnden's only daughter from his wife who was taken into the bunker after the war. Ophelia has spent her entire childhood underground in the bunker. She ventures outside with her father to stop the remnants of the military from stealing cattle from the outsiders.
Simon is the focus of the third section. He is a direct descendant of the survivors from the bunker. He struggles with other survivors from the bunker as they come to accept their fate as a dying race.
Catherine Harnden: Occurs in all sections of the book across the time-line of the novel. Throughout the course of the novel comes in to contact with her father and his descendant from the child he had in military bunker.
[edit] Minor characters
Bill Harnden, Sarah's Father. Before the war he as a teacher at Bristol University. He survives the dropping of the bombs by driving military personal to a bunker (thereby gaining entry for himself).
William: William is Sarah's younger brother. He is given a suicide pill by Sarah shortly after the war to end his prolonged suffering from radiation poisoning.
Veronica: Step mother of her husband Bill's 3 Children: Catherine, William (5 years), and Sarah. She ends her life at the local church rather than at home in front of her family shortly after the war.
[edit] Quotes
Dwight: ' Dinosaurs in a bunker' (referring to the human race)
