First and foremost thought on this one…Well, someone read and liked The Southern Reach Trilogy very much and decided to do something similar. Albeit, objectively inferior. And some of it is because VanderMeer at his best is tough to beat. And some of it is due to this book’s pacing. It’s kind of…dreamy? I mean, the narrative has a distinct dreamy quality to it, too. But it’s the acing that throws the entire production off, though not catastrophically. The main basis for The Southern Reach book

Beware spoilers!This book is a future dystopian, where the planet suffered an environmental crisis. Much of the population is forced to try and survive on the surface, while others get to live luxuriously on the ring.I feel like this book makes the general population look so ignorant. Like they just didn't notice that everytime a blue light from space hits the Earth, more greenery pops up? The author doesn't really explain much on how things came to be or how knowledge was lost. I feel like ther...

I was so looking forward to this book, and unfortunately I could not finish it. It was beautiful and lyrical but so messy at the same time. I could not get into it, and it was just not for me. Thank you NetGalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight The Swimmers first drew me in with its title (I'll never turn down anything that mentions swimming, let's be real). Then the cover blew me away, and I love me a dystopian, so there was really no doubt I'd be needing to read this book. I feel... complicated things about it, so let's break down what I enjoyed versus what I had trouble with!What I Liked: ►The world itself is fascinating....

The concept of a climate change dystopia was really seducing, as I like both of those aspects. However, I did not enjoy this as much as I thought I would.The lore is pretty good. We get introduced to a world in which climate change has divided humanity. The rich and powerful have built a ring in space. Those on the ground suffer heatwaves, mutating plants and animals. That is pretty much all I can say about the plot though. I don't think I understood what the book is really about. It had a lot o...

The Swimmers is the latest novel from Marian Womack, and much like her previous book, The Golden Key, it has a strange, dreamlike quality that makes reading it a unique experience.The narrative follows Pearl, a young woman who’s grown up in a world of the far future, where the earth has been completely altered by climate change and out of control terra-forming, creating a place that’s almost unrecognisable for readers.Following global warming the world has been transformed, covered in a vast, al...

I finished this book thinking meh it was ok, average, 3 star. The more i thought about it the more annoyed i got. It jumped around in different times and was far too descriptive/metaphorical for my liking. Throughout the book it hinted at things eg fertility/terraforming which could have been expanded on but they were sort of just left. The entire story seemed to be wrapped up in two pages. It didnt explain how Pearl got up to the ring or why they took her baby?

The Swimmers by Marian Womack is a dreamy and thought-provoking, speculative evolution, eco-dystopian novel perfect for fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy. The story is utterly unique and the world building is superb. The captivating cover is what initially caught my eye and when I read the synopsis I knew I had to have it. This was a buddy read with my sister-in-law and we both absolutely loved it.

Fascinating eco-Gothic novel inspired by The Wide Sargasso Sea‘The Swimmers’ by Marian Womack is set on a future Earth ravaged by climate change where the last of the human race is divided between those living on the surface among deep jungles and monstrous animals and those living in the Upper Settlement, a ring situated at the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. Its lead is Pearl, a young woman living on an isolated estate in the forests of Gobari, with her beautiful, mad mother, Urania. Following...

The Swimmers is a richly-imagined literary eco-dystopia that draws inspiration from Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and presents an earth centuries in the future when life has irrevocably changed for all living creatures on our home planet. It's 2033 in Andalusia, Spain, and after the ravages of global warming, this is place of deep jungles, strange animals, and new taxonomies and in the tropical zone carnivorous plants and humongous animals have overrun the forests and continue to mutate with alar...

Okay. Where to begin...I found this book both fascinating and terrifying to read. The social concepts are interesting and have clever plot points. The terrifying part of reading this was how out of depth I was in the same interesting plot and it's beautiful way its written. It is defiantly a deep thinker book...yes thank Jeff Vandermeer. He is one of these authors whom I love, but sometimes have to read the book a second time to get everything.

An eco-dystopian, Weird speculative fiction, this eerily premonitory tale imagines what could happen if both capitalism and climate change go unchecked.It is the 2300s, and Earth is now transformed from centuries of abuse. The oceans are filled with plastic, animals have mutated into monstrosities, and the jungle swallows up entire villages in one night. The rich have only gotten richer and have moved into the Upper Settlement, a space station on the edge of the atmosphere. Everyone else is doin...

Bookclub. Well written but too confusing for my liking

The Swimmers is a furistic fable about how the power of storytelling can be turned into propaganda by those who wish to impose their will on others. It's messy and, at times, hard to follow. But it's also lyrical and beautiful to read. Chaotically structured and constantly rambling just like the jungle the story takes place in. There are plenty of poignant comments on the ever-increasing gap between the mega-wealthy and the poor, and how wealth will insulate the 1% from the devastating effects o...

Firstly I want to say a huge thank you to Titan books for the advanced copy of this title. I was excited to see a new book from Marian Womack, her previous book The Golden Key was a book that I loved so I was eager to dive back into her ethereal writing style. Unfortunately this dreamlike quality, which worked so well in a gothic setting, fell short in this story for me.The premise is strong and a stark take on the future we could find ourselves in, the rich continuing with their opulent lifesty...

The Swimmers is part eco-horror, part sci-fi dystopia.A few hundred years in the future, Earth has become nearly inhospitable. The privileged lived in the Upper Ring, miles above the ground, and the rest are doing their best to survive the wild ocean, the metastasizing jungles, and the bioengineered wild animals. Those who live on the surface are divided into castes, and the narrator Pearl is a member of the higher caste (her family has a slave, but they're *nice* slave-owners). As the story pro...

Firstly, huge thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. The Swimmers is a reimagining of Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, set in a dystopian, futuristic, Earth that has been almost destroyed by global warming and climate change. This has led to extreme social inequality between those who live on the surface and those who live in the Upper Settlement. Pearl has lived on the surface her whole life believing that she knows the t...

2/24/2021 3.5 stars rounded up. Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.2/27/2021 It’s kind of hilarious how the back cover of this volume calls it a reimagining of Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea even as Marian Womack’s afterword candidly discusses how she doesn’t want to compare The Swimmers to what was for her a seminal text. And I can see for both arguments: the comparison is a huge hook in getting readers to pick this up, but the story itself, while having many parallels to that reimaginin...

This book is probably the definition of "not for everybody." I was almost put off reading it by the surplus of negative reviews and frustrated feedback. However, I'm glad I gave it a shot and ultimately think the book is worth picking up for a particular niche readership.This would be three stars, but I'm adding a star for originality and sheer oddity. The Swimmers is heavily influenced by Wide Sargasso Sea and Annihilation/climate horror science fiction, which should be understood from the begi...

Firstly, huge thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.The Swimmers takes place in the future on a dystopian Earth, which has been nearly destroyed climate change. Due to the climate change, there is a group of rich people who live in the Upper Settlement away from Earth and they consider themselves more superior. The first part of the story focuses on Pearl, who shows us the drastic changes to the world, including the mutated animals. We le...