Friday 15 July 2022

REVIEW - THE OASIS TRIALS - ORIGINS OF THE THAW BY TAMAR SLOAN & HEIDI CATHERINE

  

Title: The Oasis Trials
Series: Origins Of The Thaw
Authors: Tamar Sloan & Heidi Catherine
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Climate-Change-Fiction,
               Dystopian, Post Apocalyptic

Release Date: 27th May 2022

BLURB from Goodreads
Five trials to prove your worth. Two teens with everything to lose. One chance to escape.

In a world ravaged by global warming, an unconventional leader plans to sail away and start again in a mythical place known as Tomorrow Land. He’s decided to take one hundred young lives with him…if they pass a series of tests.

Fyve’s grown up in the poverty and violence molded by environmental and economic collapse. Passing is his only ticket to escape a life of starvation and struggle. But it also means leaving his family, the ones he’s spent his life protecting.

Halo is the daughter of the leader, and she’s determined to compete in the Trials just like everyone else. As the tests become more deadly with each one that passes, she questions if the future she yearns for is worth it. Especially if Fyve is adamant he won’t set foot on the ship her father has promised will arrive.

As the fight to leave becomes the fight to survive, as passing the tests means leaving behind everything and everyone they love, Fyve and Halo are about to discover that being chosen comes at a price.
 

Goodreads Link

PURCHASE LINKS
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REVIEW
I love the cover of The Oasis Trials, it does its job of catching your eye really well. It also fits in very well with the rest of the series set in the same universe which I am really fond of too. I bet the physical copies of the books look absolutely amazing all together on a book shelf! Upon reading the blurb I knew it was a must read for me. Having read the other books I was certainly super curious to see what this book was going to reveal about how it all began. I wanted to know how people were chosen to go on the great ship, and how things ended up once on the ship, how they coexisted on the ship. Then I was interested to learn the reasons why certain rules were made and imposed on the societies that are revealed in the other books. I can’t wait to discover which characters are descendants from the new characters we are about to be introduced to in this book.

This book is set on “Treasure Island” which is really more like trash island as it is a moving mass of plastic, non-recyclable waste that has melded together. Though characters such as Halo refer to this “trash” as “treasure” to be recycled, reused and given a new life as something other than its first purpose. The inhabitants on the island are led by a man called Elijah, who communicates with a higher, greater, power that goes by the name of Terra. Terra connects with Elijah via dreams or by whispering in his ear. Each evening all the islanders gather together on the beach for “gratitude” which I would describe as a prayer of thanks for all they have. To be totally honest these people do not have a lot. They merely get by day to day with the hope one day Terra will bless them with a chance of a better future. Halo is Elijah’s daughter who has the mind of an engineer and is always building things. Her greatest creation that she is collecting parts for is a motor that she hopes to get working again so that it can be used to move the whole of treasure island and its people across the acidic sea to a more plentiful land and a better existence for all. Both her father Elijah and her older brother, Ajax think what Halo is doing is a waste of time and resources. When Halo builds a tree from old scavenged metal poles & rubbish she finds, they tell her it is a waste of time and materials, but Halo understands looking at something like this gives people hope of seeing real trees again and for a better future.

Elijah soon announces that Terra is sending a large ship that can be used to go find Tomorrow Land. At first there is excitement and relief they will all be going to Tomorrow Land, until Elijah reveals, not everyone will be going. Terra has spoken to him, and told him just 100 inhabitants of the island will be allowed on board ship. To reassure everyone e goes on to say that once this new plentiful place called Tomorrow Land is found, some will settle there and others will return to Treasure Island to transport everyone else, to reunite their community. Elijah also reveals that there will be five trials to be undertaken but only those aged 13 to 19 can take part. These trials are to be judged by only Terra who will tell Elijah who has passed and who has failed. There will also be deaths during these trials, so entering them should not be taken lightly. Elijah constantly re-iterates that it is Terra who will decide who is wanted on the ship when it arrives. Terra see’s everyone and everything they say or do. As Terra gives, Terra also takes. Should anyone speak or act in any way they shouldn’t Terra takes them in a rather gruesome way referred to as a “claiming.” Naturally those on Treasure Island do not want to be on the wrong side of Terra and be claimed so it is rare for someone to speak out in against anything decreed by Elijah on behalf of Terra.

As you can imagine, almost everyone wants to compete for the chance of being on the ship that will travel to Tomorrow Land. Some are much more deserving of a place than others. Some characters want to gain their chance fairly where as others don’t care who they trample on or leave behind in their efforts to get a place on the ship. Some of the characters are torn not wanting to leave behind their family members not eligible for a chance to go on the ship, they worry how those left behind will fare without their protection, and without them to scavenge for the already scarce food source. Then on the other hand some of them need to go searching for Tomorrow Land, to find a better future for everyone, then once it has been found they can proudly return for those they had to leave behind initially and lead them to a much better existence.

I adored Halo, the daughter of Elijah who knows she will be judged the same as anyone taking part in the trials. Halo knows she will not be shown any favouritism or be given any clues on how to pass the trials just because Elijah is her father. Having said that both Elijah’s children, Halo and Ajax are equally determined to take part in each and every trial and do their very best to earn a place on the great ship that Terra is going to send them.

Another family determined to have representatives on the great ship are the eligible children of sisters Cee and Dee, both are widows and the “heads” of their families are their eldest sons. In Cee’s case that is Coal who is eager to be on the great ship, to sail away and find Tomorrow Land then return for his mother and his younger siblings Jett, Bloo and Rubee. In Dee’s case her eldest son Fyve is determined not to enter the trials, how he looks at the situation is, if Coal gets onto the ship, he will be needed more at home on Treasure Island to care for his Aunt Cee, Jett, Bloo & Rubee as well as his own younger sibling Sevin. Fyve’s mother Dee, regularly takes off alone on a raft in search of a new more plentiful land, so Fyve looks upon her as unreliable. Other characters I want to mention that I really grew quickly attached to were Coal, Fyve, Sevin and Justice. I also grew to like Striker.

There were, other characters I really enjoyed being irritated with too, starting with Elijah himself! You do get the feeling many times during the book that he is withholding information or choosing not to reveal all the details he could do. Looking back at his character having finished the whole book I do still have that inkling that he may have had more say in the decisions of who did or didn’t pass the trials, that perhaps it wasn’t 100% Terra’s decision. I wasn’t all that keen on Ajax either as I don’t think he or his father Elijah, treat Halo very well. Another brother sister interactions during the trials that I went through a whole range of emotions about was Zake and Justice. Zake is so confident that he will be on the great ship, yet at the same time so unsupportive of his sister Justice more than once. He does occasionally seem to redeem himself but I couldn’t help feeling deep down he wasn’t neither the best brother or candidate for Tomorrow Land and the future generations.

I thoroughly enjoyed the subtle things that are mentioned or occur within this book that were referenced or affect characters, ways of living and plot lines in the other books in the series. I think the trials in this book were certainly the precursors to the testing for whom would be bound and unbound in the later books. I also felt like I was perhaps picking up on certain ancestor traits for some of the character I have “met” in the other books I have read in this series and I really loved that aspect too.

I definitely adored finding out more about Treasure Island and its residents. So many young people enter the trials only to have their hopes dashed or even worse lose their lives. There are a lot of things hinted at in this book that we won’t find out until further on in this series. I am excited for all the potential story lines to come in the forthcoming books, to find out where the characters in the latter Chronicles Of Thaw books are descendant from. I am already trying to work some of these out, I am eager to see if I am right or not. It will be interesting to see if they have the traits of their ancestors. I truly feel I could talk forever about this book and in fact, the whole book series so far and have had to make a firm, conscious effort not to reveal any type of spoiler.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing this book were Wow, these characters really do go through some gruelling tests and trials for a chance to get on the Oasis.

Summing up, if you have read the other Chronicles Of The Thaw books then this is a must read! If you haven’t read any of the books yet, I recommend you start reading them! The characters in this book really do go through both gruelling and gruesome trials just for the chance of a place on a ship that has yet to arrive, to go in search of a place Tomorrow Land that they don’t really have an idea where it is. 


 


 

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