The Gathering

Justice and Her Brothers #3

by Virginia Hamilton

In the third book of The Justice Cycle by an award-winning author, four youths with special powers battle an evil force known as Mal as they lead the Slakers out of the Dustland and into a high-tech city of domes. Reprint.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Childrens, Young Adult

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Virginia Esther Hamilton was the author of forty-one works of fiction and nonfiction. She was the first Black writer awarded the Newbery Medal and the first children's writer to be named a MacArthur Fellow (the "Genius" grant). She also received the National Book Award and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal.

Reviews

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book was the best in the series because pieces of the time travel/ future world finally started to make sense, and, for my own work, I appreciate that the cultural commentary becomes most clear in this installment. That being said, this series will probably never be a favorite of mine because I have a really hard time envisioning and understanding the complex future world and the rules of the universe Hamilton has created here. Even after reading all three, there are still pieces of her universe that do not make any sense to me and characters that I cannot picture to save my life. I appreciate that her sci-fi vision and voice is unique and distinct, but it can also be very confusing and obscure.

[Kristina Coop-a-Loop · Rating 1 out of 5]

In The Gathering, the children go back to Dustland to save their ragged semi-human, half-dog, half-lion, flying dinosaur creature-friends from Mal (a dark energy that wants to keep them trapped on nasty ole Dustland--Mal is telepathic too) and lead them out of Dustland. I'm not really sure how everyone gets from Dustland to Sona (I skimmed a lot here, I'll admit it) but I think they just basically walked from one area to another. So they get to Sona, which is a nicer place, and they are greeted by some guy named Celestor (something like that) and he's apparently some kind of cyborg and there's a giant machine/computer who also is a telepath and this giant machine created other machines and space ships...good god. It's crazy. And The Watcher, which apparently is some kind of entity separate from Justice, it's just been hitching a ride inside of her brain since she was born, needs to go back to the giant machine/computer to help it, but first the Watcher must make sure that The Unit (which is the kids, remember) get back to their own time safely...there's no point to this book. All I've figured out is that there is a prominent environmental message/warning (if we don't stop trashing the Earth it will turn into Dustland) but who knows about the rest of it. I think Virginia Hamilton was smoking some very fine and potent weed when she wrote these books because they are incoherent and odd and have no logic to them at all. Don't read them! (At least don't read them when sober. Maybe that was my mistake???)

[Kirsten · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the third book in the Justice Cycle. Justice and Her Brothers was flawed but very intriguing and promising. Dustland was even more confusing, but I had hope that the third book in the trilogy would straighten out the confusion. No such luck. The first fifteen or so pages are written in an alien voice that's so convoluted and obscure that I almost put down the book in disgust. It gets a little better, but as a whole it ends up being a completely confusing morass. It's as though Hamilton had notes for a very good science fiction novel, but never actually shaped them up enough to write that novel. It's strange because she's normally such a strong writer, but maybe she was never meant to write science fiction.

[Daniel Korn Korn]

I really liked this book. It was very science fiction themed, which is one of my favorites. I really liked how the main theme of this book was time travel, every author/T.V. show/ movie producer has their own vision of science fiction and time travel. I think it's interesting seeing other people's visions. I think this one is perticularly cool because the issue had to do with people becoming lost in time travel and being stuck in between transporations. I recomend this book for anyone who enjoys science fiction theme

[Thistle & Verse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't get into a lot of the dialogue. Most of the characters from the future speak a dialect, but it felt gratuitous and poorly executed. The new words and new idioms don't tell us much about the people and cultures that conceived them, and it didnt seem like there were many grammar rules. Hamilton finally explains why Dustland exists and why the unit was called there and who Mal is, but the payoff was a mixed bag for me. Some of the elements of this future were really cool, while others felt like sci fi tropes madlibs, and I still had questions about Dustland. A short book, so the cool elements like Colossus and Celester weren't dimmed too much, but I felt meh about the series as a whole. Miacis is probably the most memorable character for me just because she's so strange and makes me so nervous.

[Jack Holtby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very intriguing book with beautiful rendering of strange languages and ways of communicating. The ending seems slightly rushed at points, but the fact the ending can have points reminds me that it also took its time in ending.

Unfortunately I didn't get to read the first two books, so I'm a bit lost. Good read nonetheless.

[Evan Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Gathering is an interactive book for people who believe time travel and science. If you want to read this book, you might want to be prepared for a jump through time.

[Genevieve Paquette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well. That cleared up exactly nothing. What a slog. First, I hate the writing style of the first 3/4 of the book. It is vague, garbled nonsense and it destroyed even the potential for enjoyment. Had I read this as a kid, I probably would have given up, flinging it across the room in disgust. As it is reading it as an adult just made me wonder, what was Hamilton thinking?
Thomas is still deeply disturbing, even though in the end he is bribed into being "good" by having his stutter taken away (only if he is clear of hateful intentions).
Yeah, what a weird, confusing, frustrating and ultimately pointless tale.
I honestly can't figure out the point.