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Less
A hundred years after science melded with religion and found a way to divide people into "great" and "less," the Numbers System, as it's called, has been adopted by most countries. In America, lessers are mostly relegated to Lessland—the country—where they grow the crops, work in the factories, and produce the fine goods, art, and entertainment that sustain life in the big cities, where greaters live and pursue business, commerce, and politics.This is a story about one orphaned lesser named Jameson on a journey to discover what it means to be great. His quest takes him to the glittering cities of Greatland and catapults him and his brother to fame as rock stars. Greatland forces Jame to confront exploitation, cruelty, and a lack of understanding between the less and the great that he feels called to address. What is great, and what is less? What is the true value of human life? Jame asks this and more, probing the theology and ideology of his world as he looks down every road that might lead him to his destiny.
256 pages, Paperback
Published January 11, 2017
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January 18, 2017
The Less series is not like anything I’ve ever read. And as a life-long bookworm, I have read a lot. Less is the first novel in a series, the second book of which is a new release for 2017. I look forward to reviewing that one as well.
December Nolan’s novels typically defy genre—that’s what she does. Less, however, goes a step further than that, in the best possible way. It defies storytelling conventions, political judgment, and especially the human tendency to stop looking once we’ve decided what we’re seeing.
To (attempt to) put it in a nutshell: Less is a future dystopian, (or is it utopian?) sociocultural “what if” exploration of the coming of age of a young “lesser” in a world where freedom is defined differently, rights are prescribed separately to different castes of society based on a scientific analysis of the human soul, and the idea of “all men are created equal” is basically debunked—but could society actually be the better for it?
Sound like a 1984 or Brave New World scenario? It’s that, but it’s also really different from that, even the opposite. Don’t wait for the author to tell you what to think—readers of December Nolan have to decide for themselves. The Less series is a Brave New World for new times, while at the same time being an enormously entertaining, often humorous, frequently touching exploration of human nature, and what we might really need if we could only let ourselves have it.
Jame is a lesser. That means he has to do almost anything any greater—the caste of society that makes the money and has the prestige—tells him to do. Lessers serve greaters by law. Yet when Jame and his brother Cis, as young lesser trying to find the right career and life path, decide to explore Greatland, they discover that wealth, prestige, and too much freedom make happiness rare among the elite of their world. Contentment is the norm in Lessland, where the people live a simple, sustainable life close to the land, but greaters consider that life unbearably poor and plain.
It’s all just indescribably fascinating. If you’ve never questioned whether more freedom is always better, and whether human rights should be the same for all humans, and what all that really means, you will when you read this. Comfortable? Not really. That’s not Nolan’s style. There’s no black or white here, but there’s a whole lot of unvarnished humanity, explored at a depth fiction rarely reaches.
It’s the kind of book that changes a person. I’m deeply grateful that I read it, and that it exists. It’s a modern classic that deserves a place in the annals of literature, whenever our society is ready for it.
December Nolan’s novels typically defy genre—that’s what she does. Less, however, goes a step further than that, in the best possible way. It defies storytelling conventions, political judgment, and especially the human tendency to stop looking once we’ve decided what we’re seeing.
To (attempt to) put it in a nutshell: Less is a future dystopian, (or is it utopian?) sociocultural “what if” exploration of the coming of age of a young “lesser” in a world where freedom is defined differently, rights are prescribed separately to different castes of society based on a scientific analysis of the human soul, and the idea of “all men are created equal” is basically debunked—but could society actually be the better for it?
Sound like a 1984 or Brave New World scenario? It’s that, but it’s also really different from that, even the opposite. Don’t wait for the author to tell you what to think—readers of December Nolan have to decide for themselves. The Less series is a Brave New World for new times, while at the same time being an enormously entertaining, often humorous, frequently touching exploration of human nature, and what we might really need if we could only let ourselves have it.
Jame is a lesser. That means he has to do almost anything any greater—the caste of society that makes the money and has the prestige—tells him to do. Lessers serve greaters by law. Yet when Jame and his brother Cis, as young lesser trying to find the right career and life path, decide to explore Greatland, they discover that wealth, prestige, and too much freedom make happiness rare among the elite of their world. Contentment is the norm in Lessland, where the people live a simple, sustainable life close to the land, but greaters consider that life unbearably poor and plain.
It’s all just indescribably fascinating. If you’ve never questioned whether more freedom is always better, and whether human rights should be the same for all humans, and what all that really means, you will when you read this. Comfortable? Not really. That’s not Nolan’s style. There’s no black or white here, but there’s a whole lot of unvarnished humanity, explored at a depth fiction rarely reaches.
It’s the kind of book that changes a person. I’m deeply grateful that I read it, and that it exists. It’s a modern classic that deserves a place in the annals of literature, whenever our society is ready for it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review