I've sometimes wondered what life would be like if all I had left were the boots on my feet...
With recommendations from Lee Child and John Connolly, Defender is British author GX Todd 's extraordinary debut novel.
Defender is set in a dystopian future where most humans have succumbed to a disease that makes people crazy - hearing voices that tell them to kill others and then themselves.
In the first book of a four-part Voices series, Defender sets the scene as protagonists Lacey - young, cheeky but calculating and Pilgrim - tough on the outside but with a seriously soft heart - meet for the first time.
In Defender, Todd sets up the relationship of Lacey and Pilgrim, who she only knows as "Boy Scout." Pilgrim's character is world weary. He reminds me of Bruce Willis. Perhaps this is because he was The Last Boy Scout but I'm already imagining the movie.
Lacey is desperate to find people. But not so desperate that she doesn't use her wits. Or the shotgun she's very competent with.
Not at all stupid, Lacey is a young woman to be reckoned with. Pilgrim would do well to listen to her instincts. She soon finds that the escape and community she had hoped for will not be easily won: not all survivors want community; many want power.
Pilgrim dispatches these human predators with expertise. Pilgrim just keeps moving. Wary, he keeps to himself. He relies on his wits, avoiding others who could slow him down or worse. He hasn't counted on picking up two women and a cat in the first few chapters.
He keeps the Voice in his head to himself as well.
Over a glass of lemonade Lacey cleverly tricks Pilgrim into taking her away from the home town she's been stuck in for seven years.
Some of the content in this book is brutal: it's a brutal world - yet Todd conveys characters' suffering with sympathy; the brutality is integral to the plot. Yet there is a layer of female self-awareness in the text. GX Todd writes with feeling without being sentimental. She writes with a mastery of language: her physical, descriptive passages are so well written that they aren't flowery or wordy, but give the reader a clear perception of events:
(Pilgrim) eased lower into the seat, his eyes heavy-lidded. "Get off the highway at the next off-ramp...and don't stop for anybody." He sank down, down into the seat's foamy embrace, until he was encased on all sides, as if lying in a plush, slumberous coffin." (p. 130)
Chapters alternate between the points of view of the two main characters, often replaying a scene from each character's point of view. Until the lines become crossed...
This book brings to mind Stephen King's The Stand ; a classic post apocalyptic battle of good vs evil. In this story there is also a man collecting people he deems special to master plan...
It Defender also makes me think of Bird Box - another great dystopian story in which most of the world have not only been driven murderously crazy, but also blind...
Dystopia : a community or society that is undesirable or frightening ...
Defender
by G. X. Todd
Published by Hachette New Zealand
ISBN: 9781472233097
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