Following the surprise announcements at the end of Bridgers 1, Infinity, Desmond and the other bridgers now switch from mollycoddling rich tourists to being tasked with finding “suitable worlds for colonies of 718 refugees per world”, and thus preserving a tiny portion of humanity before the Earth finally disintegrates and dies. Time is running out, and more and more corners are being cut to speed up the colonisation progress. Infinity has always been cautious – the reason behind her longevity as a bridger. But the time for caution has gone, as has the bridgers’ creed of protecting the ‘tourists’ lives above their own. The survival of humanity supersedes the survival of any one individual. In this book, many, many individuals die, in increasingly gruesome ways.
This book is not for the fainthearted. Sometimes the battle scenes can become a bit overwhelming. But they are important. The book is sub titled “The Cost of Survival”, and that is the key question here: what cost is humanity prepared to pay for survival? Will Humanity still exist if humans wipe out or enslave the current inhabitants of the new worlds as Lorissa seems to have in mind: “I see great potential in the existing agricultural infrastructure here. I don’t care how intelligent these things are, as long as they’ll help us. Once we get established, maybe we can have them work our fields for us” and “This world already has shelters, and fences, and livestock. Maybe it will be our pathogens that wipe out the thirdlings, and then we’ll be able to use their villages.”
Infinity and Desmond believe the way forward is through cooperation with the natives – but are they just deluding themselves? Only time will tell – and that is running very short indeed.
The book also begs the question: if you could restart human civilisation, what form would you want it to have? Who out of Earth’s billions of inhabitants should be given the opportunity to bridge? What characteristics do the bridgers need? Who will decide? The idealistic bunch forming the next colonist group know what they want – but will reality intrude? I am looking forward to Bridgers 3 to find out.
This is a very violent, but also very thought-provoking book. One thing I particularly like about this series, is that the bridgers can take nothing through with them – in particular, no weapons. There are too many post-apocalyptic novels that rely on an inexhaustible supply of heavy weaponry – where every decision is made at the end of a gun barrel. Here, adaptability, physical and mental strength reign supreme. Perhaps there will be hope for mankind after all.
I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this book at no cost from the author in exchange for an honest review