I’m a big fan of dystopian fiction and picked this one up quickly when I saw it on NetGalley UK
This novel follows a young man living in an underground desert community as he journeys to discover other human settlements. A dystopian event called the Great cataclysm has occurred the cause of which isn’t really detailed in the novel but the inference is that there’s a huge climate emergency which is caused massive increasing temperatures in southern countries raised sea levels and a big change to the world map as we know it because of flooding a few areas in the northern hemisphere.
At the start of the story, we had that the Oasis responsible for water to maintain the underground. Community is drying out and the narrator Amonaar must journey with his camels across the great desert to look for fabled lands in the north which might be potential future sites for settlements.
The novel is essentially a journey based story as we follow Alana’s on his migration.
The great catechism has resulted in loss of education and technologies so that all the groups that we discover are leading a Stone Age style life largely subsistence farming or hunting
During the journey, the sections I most enjoyed were when they found evidence of “ancient civilisation “in the form of wrecked submarines bombs and aeroplanes evidence of our 21st century technology I would’ve liked more of these sections
The journey itself seem sto go rather on and on the end feels rushed and rather unsatisfactory

Whilst I read I’m a bit confused by the footnotes which describe where the future countries are in relation to our current world. Whilst this is interesting it’s inferring a level of knowledge about the past (our present) which the story itself suggests is not there . The footnotes for example describe the areas that you meet in terms of the 20th century world map this is explained right at the end of the novel however.
There’s a degree of magical reality towards the last section as a novel when it becomes clear that the author of the novel has the ability to live and extended life time. This does open the opportunity for future novels in this storyline.
I read a copy of the novel on NetGalley UK in return for an unbiased review. The book was published in the UK on the 28th of April 2025 by Troubadour
This review will appear on that Gully UK, StoryGraph, Goodreads, and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com
It will also appear on Amazon, UK and Waterstones

The Chronicles of Kaimakla is a tale about the world after a nuclear war. It takes place far in the future and paints a bleak future for mankind. I enjoyed the book.