This book has a lot of introspective writing, covers a lot of time, is an imagining of how the world could change, and is really well written. If you like lower-key but still vaguely unsettling (in a good way) stories, this book is probably your cuppa.

Thanks so much to the publisher for the review copy!

𝙋𝙤𝙨𝙩-𝙖𝙥𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙮𝙥𝙩𝙞𝙘/𝙙𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙖𝙣 + 𝙘𝙡𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 + 𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 = 𝙔𝙀𝙎 𝙋𝙇𝙕!
I am still shocked that this is a debut novel. Sawn takes an ambitious concept that explores motherhood, legacy and human connection and makes it work. Swan’s characters are engaging and developed considering you’re weaving through seven generations. I will note, if you prefer more linear storylines, this isn’t the book for you. However, if you’re like me - do not pass this one up!

The writing is strange and jumps around. I had trouble getting into it. Not a book I would purchase for the library.

Walk the Vanished Earth by Erin Swan is a debut novel with great potential in its underlying premise, structure, and characters, but while the story does at times rises to meet that potential, it does so unevenly and by the end, for me at least, unsatisfactorily.

The story opens at the close of a buffalo hunt in the Kansas prairie in 1873, with a young Irishman named Samson doing the last bit of work amidst the bloody carnage and recalling the harsh life that led them here and making plans for the better one he hopes to forge for himself: “In this New World, he told himself, he would be a new man.” From there, the narrative leaps forward in time to 2073 and outward in space to Mars and a young girl named Moon who has spent much of her remembered life traversing the Marscape with Uncle One and Uncle Two, a pair of beings that are clearly not human. What they are, and how they ended up with Moon in tow, are questions that will eventually be answered but not for some time. Before then, Swan moves back and forth not just between these two times and characters, but adds in multiple other characters and time periods, including but not li tied to:

• Bea, a pre-teen girl who in 1975 ends up in an institution after showing up in town malnourished, pregnant, non-communicative, disassociative, and clearly traumatized.. She’s treated there by Dr James Carson.

• Paul, an orphan living in Kansas City in the 90’s who at age 18 finds out via letter that he is Bea’s son

• Kaiser, a young girl living in 2027 in “the Floating City”, an attempt at a new type of community built by her Pa atop the flooded wreckage of what was once New Orleans.

All these stories and the characters within them are linked, some more immediately clearly than others. Repeated themes run throughout the various segments. The carnage and wastefulness of the bison hunting, which as we know results in their near extinction, is later mirrored by our willful carelessness with regard to our impact on the climate, which also results in disaster (s). Motherhood is another theme closely examined across a spectrum of perspectives.

Meanwhile, individual characterization is a strong point of the novel, with most of the characters richly drawn with all the complexities for good and ill of real people. Their interrelationships are less consistently successful, where perhaps the sheer amount of plot and theme Swan is playing with works as a hindrance to more fully realized, more natural relationships. Ones that might have been better served with the advantage of more time spent with them.

That generally is the sense I had of several of the book’s elements. I’m always a sucker for non-linear structure, but while I appreciated what Swan was doing here structurally, the execution fell a bit short, with some of the jumps feeling choppy and the balance being somewhat off. The structure didn’t feel quite honed enough. The same sense arose with the world-building and the more futuristic plotting, though to a greater degree. I didn’t need hard sci-fi level of nuts and bolts engineering in terms of how people got to Mars, but I definitely needed more than I got. The same held true for the overall world. I had little sense for instance of what was happening with regard to the various climatic disasters worldwide.

In the end, the book’s flaws outweighed for me its several strengths, though it was a close call. I’m thinking perhaps a more streamlined story might have been of benefit, but one’s mileage may vary. While Walk the Vanished Earth had its rewards, it didn’t quite hold up, but those rewards were great enough that I’ll be checking out Swan’s next offering

This was a five star read for me! A beautifully written family epic set as a dystopian novel; the reader follows along a group of people connected through 200 years of hope and adversity, from 1873 to 2075. Climate change has ravaged much of the edges of the continents, particularly those of the United States, and people are now resorting to basic acts of survival to create a sustainable future for themselves and for mankind. ⁣
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⁣I loved this book. I went into it not knowing much and I’m glad about that. Parts of it did remind me of 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘌𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 but without the virus/pandemic. I loved how the story unfolded and we see all the connections that weren’t obvious at first. ⁣
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⁣It’s definitely a slow burn, and the whole year 2075 living on Mars really threw me off in the beginning but it worked as the story progressed. There were so many lovely scenes, and such muted grief in many passages. As a reader, I felt I had to be okay with so many “if only!” scenarios much like the ending of 𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘔𝘪𝘥𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵.

Highly, highly recommend this book if you like dystopians, family epics, and books about climate change.

3.5⭐️

Let’s begin by stating that the writing style was beautiful. I had a great time with that. The plot was intriguing and I found bits of the story to be emotional and just wonderful.
The downfall came with the fact that I felt as if I had to force myself to pick the book up once I had set it down. While it was a good read, it wasn’t one I felt myself continuously reaching for. This could have been because I haven’t necessarily been in the mood to read this particular genre lately, so take that with a grain of salt. Still really good and I’d love to read more of this author’s works.

Erin Swan's novel (debut I believe?) is an ambitious piece of fiction. The story is told through the eyes of different people within different generations (and the table of contents reflects that). I'm going to discuss, hopefully without spoilers, some of the pros and cons of the book.

Pros: Beautiful writing. In spite of the fact that this was a post-apocolyptic/dystopia book it read like an actual fiction genre novel. Relationships, both the good and bad, mental illness, physical disability, and more are addressed with a gentle hand. Nothing seems too far out there in terms of the science fiction element of the novel and that really works well in maintaining the overall flow of the book.

Cons: The first con I have is a bit of a pro and a con. I appreciate the diversity that Erin has brought into her novel through characters from different backgrounds/origins/ethnicities. That said, I always cringe a bit when I see white authors take these backgrounds on. Thankfully, I couldn't see any co-opting of specific cultures in terms of the actions, but I did feel a bit on edge anytime I saw a reference to a specific Ojibwe legend appearing.

Is it worth a read? Definitely. Just bear in mind where the author is coming from and what choices she has made in bringing specific elements into her story.

I was intrigued when I saw this book being compared to Station Eleven, but wary that it could actually meet the expectations this comparison set. However, it didn't take me long into the book to realize that I had nothing to fear. Walk the Vanished Earth is a stirring dystopian novel that weaves together stories of of a family across generations as they each struggle to figure out how their dreams and desires can manifest and are impacted by the shifting environmental changes. It's an utterly beautiful story, tackling themes of generational trauma, motherhood, and how history is shaped. And no matter how bleak the realities Swan explores and that the characters face, the book is always grounded in hope and the way that our connections to others are such a powerful, sustaining force during troubled times.

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking story of past, present and future where we see the consequences of humanity’s arrogance over nature. Beginning in the 19th century, we meet pioneers eager to start fresh in their new homes on the plains, through the years, different characters witness climate change, foretell a dark future and finally a young woman named Moon. A girl who only knows of earth through stories and legends, as rising temperatures flooded the planet, making it uninhabitable for humans. Moon lives on Mars with her two alien uncles, and now that she is of age, she must decide if she will allow some fragment of the human race to live on. For those who loved Cloud Cuckoo Land and The Cloud Atlas, this is a mesmerizing, terrifyingly beautiful book