Susan Kaye Quinn’s ‘Nothing is Promised’ series consists of four novels, each leading into the next and, although they share many of the same characters, each one focuses on someone different as the main character. While I really enjoyed all the stories in the series, I also didn’t agree with some of what she looked at as a possible future–it’s definitely more hierarchical than the future I want to see–although that changes somewhat at the end. In spite of that, I’d still very much recommend these books as exciting stories about a positive future.
When You Had Power is the first book in the series. It’s about Lucia who is moving in with a communal family and has a new job at a “Power Island”. When she realizes that there’s something happening on the island besides making power she investigates and almost gets herself killed–by employees of the island. Fortunately her new family takes care of her, but she is determined to figure out what’s going on, and decides to take it to the Regional Director.
In You Knew the Price (the second book) Zuri, the overworked Regional Director, is having a hard enough time balancing work and family life, but when she’s finally convinced there’s a big problem at the Power Island, she investigates and she and Lucia are nearly kidnapped. Zuri begins to suspect someone has discovered a possible new energy source. She decides she needs to bring this to a Public Utilities Commissioner who is also a former physicist.
The third book, Of Kindness and Kilowatts, focuses on Akemi, Commissioner and physicist who is dealing with his father, a former physicist now falling apart. But both of them become intrigued by this mysterious new energy source. Akemi quietly tries to learn more from Ellis and Miller, the two men involved with this project. Although they try to keep things secret, he becomes convinced they really have a new energy source. He decides to talk with the Governor of Southern California.
In Yet You Cry When It Hurts, the final book in the series, the Governor reaches out to Nitara, a director at the International Energy Consortium, who is already overloaded with negotiations and personal problems. But she assembles a team (that includes Lucia, Zuri, and Akemi) to take on Ellis and Miller, who are now trying to blackmail the world into buying their new energies and return the world to the days of rich white men being in power, with them on the top.
What I liked about the Nothing is Promised series was the books’ picture of lots of alternatives (communal living, found family, new forms of renewable energy, etc) and their appealing characters and focus on teamwork. What I didn’t like was showing us a future that was still very hierarchical and with energy distributed from the top (centralized power). I can’t help but compare it to the watershed councils in A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys (which I will review in a future post about more new positive future stories) where power is built and run on the local level, in spite of still existing countries and corporations.
This is somewhat mitigated in the final book when the new power source is declared a commons and the main characters decide to put “the people” in charge. Maybe this is the author’s way of saying that this is the road we need to travel, but there is no hint of that until the end. The books also seem to be saying that we need high tech solutions to our climate problems–and that seems to me to be true, unless we are willing to really change the way that we’re living (which is what I’m hoping).
Incidentally, I think the Nothing is Promised series and A Half-Built Garden are both very strong examples of the “Heroine’s Journey” (which I wrote about in my last post) where the characters use collaboration to accomplish what they need. There is a scene in Yet You Cry When It Hurts where Nitara, the overworked director, tries to take on Miller and Ellis on her own and is basically saved by her team. In other words, she tries the Hero’s Journey but is made to see that she needs to be part of something bigger. This is almost a clear affirmation of the Heroine’s Journey.
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