What am I reading? Minnesota Cold by Cynthia Kraack

[Maia]

This is another post apocalypse tale, but not just any old tale.

Life has gotten back to realitivly normal for the citizens of "The Minnesota Territory".

I'm going to sign off today because this book is a real page turner and for a book to make me leave SOTT for just a couple days has got to be some book.

This is a work of speculative fiction in which the extreme hardship of a post-nuclear event in the year 2015 or so allows a totalitarian government of the highest order to take over the state of Minnesota as well at the the five surrounding states creating a new political and economic entity called the Minnesota Territory even while the rest of the country and Canada remain largely intact. We are past the worst of times when the story opens in 2035 but life has definitely changed. The large suburban home of Sally Dodge now houses all of her extended family as well as children placed there by the government--housing as well as the energy to maintain housing is scarce in this society. Sally is the matriarch, her government functionary husband having passed, and it is her state assigned job to run the household as a means of justifying her continued existence. I love that the story is told by an "old woman," old being more relative in 2035 than it is now. Sally, while vital at 75 years old, undergoes a youth-anizing (my term), while fleeing from a scheduled euthanizing, that lets her function as a woman in her middle 50s to fight the government that has made medical technology its main export industry. Image a world in which pharmaceutical companies and research institutions can do everything and anything they want to do to create products to sell to the rest of the world for big bucks. Well, okay, we pretty much already have that but not to the point where human subjects become experimental petri-dishes and mothers are paid to beget children with any number of experimental genetic anomalies in rural communities that function as experimental farms. Sally doesn't know the full extent of the power and corruption of her government until she and her best friend are targeted for extinction as members of the "baby boomer" generation that still remember what it means to be "free," or as free as anyone can be while being mindful of the rights of others. Sally discovers treachery in her own family when she tries to buck the system and is thus forced to flee for her life to the wilds of the Minnesota arrowhead region and beyond where she discovers....

P. Davies-Amazon dot com review

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Minnesota-Cold-Cynthia-Kraack/dp/0878393234/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301148334&sr=1-1[/quote]

Cynthia Kraack's novel is really a page turner, stuff is starting to get weird. I don't want to give too much away and I've only begun my journey down this rabbit hole.

I could see this happening, particularly in America where I reside. This terrifying tale will appeal to all ages but to those of us approaching "our golden years" it might scare the stuffing out of you.

And for those of you that are real young and read this and think, oh who cares, I've got 50 or more years left. Think on this. Three months and five days ago I celebrated my 58th birthday. And let me tell you, with every year time flies by faster and faster. It seems like only yesterday and I was 20. How can 48 years go by in the wink of an eye?

This book is a real page turner, Sallie Dodge is just entering the rabbit hole, her husband dug for her shortly before his scheduled death. "Scheduled death" - A lot to think about considering we just had our beloved 18-20 year old Pointer euthanized. At what point do you draw the line and how easy and fast those lines can be erased and redrawn.

Little by little, step by step, inch by inch

Three Stooges (When I was 6-7 would watch).