The Change: Paris

Count your damned blessings people. The third installment of The Change includes the boilerplate legal note in the book details. 'This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.'

Hopefully Paris is not filled with giant murderous marionettes, living entities made of paint, or other horrors. If it it is infested, let us hope the resemblance is minimally accurate. Anything you can dream up post change can manifest, how and why is any one's guess.

Book three of The Change is a fine standalone book as well as world continuation. In this version of Earth, anyone looking to the sky on the date of change fell over instantly as lifeless meat sacks. Those who witnessed via recorded media are lunatics. Everyone else is just surviving day by day.

One might think themselves crazy if they dwell on the topic.

In Paris, the safest place is in the Catacombs. What once was a dangerous trap for the unsuspecting, now serves as a maze of dark safety for bands of humans. Growing mushrooms for sustenance and eating food scavenged from city raids, they are getting along reasonably.

Loic is a sixteen year old citizen of the underground. He is a member of one of the scavenger teams. He looks after post-apocalypse adoptive brother Adrien. He gets by.

Unfortunately, The Impressionists do not require light to move through the tunnels. They are not afraid of the dark, not disturbed by the moaning movements of the centuries old dead sitting by the walls. When The Impressionists raid the colony of survivors, they wrap their paint around their victims and drag them away, who knows where.

After Loic returns from a scavenging trip he finds that The Impressionists have taken Adrien and another child. Loic heads back to the surface in search of his brother.

Of all the books of The Change, this novella was by far my favorite. It contained some severe images which required me to wikipedia. For example, La Tricoteuse sitting by a guillotine knitting the innards of the dead. While historically inaccurate (use of innards), it is absolutely representative of the dark and disturbing La Tricoteuse pass time. Humans are screwed up.

The real kick for me was reading an argument between Robespierre’s children. Atheism arguing with Ego arguing with... it was a nice touch.

Great novella for sure.

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Disclosure: This collection of words (nouns verbs adverbs etc) was presented digitally by the publication company for my opinion to be applied against in the form of written perception. Chance of false opinion is an impossibility as I am kind of an outspoken ass who likes to complain as much as talk about things I enjoy.