Shellbreak

by J.W. Groves

Lenoir awakes in the year 2505, and finds that his invention--an impenetrable shell of force--has been "protecting" the city for 400 years. During that time no one has seen the sun, felt the rain, or been able to determine whether the bombs had fallen after all.

Genres: Science Fiction

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting sci-fi story with a twist that I did not see coming, but this book really did not age well. The persistent misogyny and blatant homophobia are truly cringeworthy.

[Joe Santoro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plot: in the year 2505, 'The City' exists in F-shell, which is completely impeneratrable, and has stood for over 400 years. Society has decayed pretty badly.. and two different political groups are trying to convince the despotic goverment to take down the shell. The government, meanwhile, goes to the past to pluck the inventor of the shell to make it so it can never come down. Lenoir arrives confused, and is made more so by the conflicting groups and strange motivations of each group in turn, as he ends up in their 'possession'. We slowly figure out what's going on as Lenoir does, until the big reveal at the end (which I won't spoil)

Analysis: This could be a great book, but the author clearly had no idea what to do with the story. While it was fun to see the main character change sides again and again and be generally unsure about what he was doing, the pay off was terrible... perhaps it could have been saved with a sequel, but I'm not sure that would even do it. This is one of those good concept/poor execution type novels that there seem to be quite a few of in this era of expanding short stories into novels.

[Jeff Kirschenbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book introduced me to science fiction. Long out of print, but worthwhile reading if you can find a copy.