The Nothing Within

90 points, 4 ¾ stars!
Warning: weird almost non-consensual, almost consensual sex?

Blurb:

What unforgivable sin would you commit to save the world?

In 2161, the first chimera arose. A year later, twelve billion people were dead. The few who survived called it the Reckoning.

Generations later, their descendants hide within the walls of small, rustic villages, cowering from chimeras. They revere tradition. They fear innovation. They mistrust anything that’s different.

Root couldn’t be more different.

Curious and irreverent, she disquiets her village. Blind daughter of the village guardian, she stands apart. Frustrated with a wall-bound life, she grudgingly accepts it—until she hears the voice that no one else can hear.

Root's journey will take her into the wilds to discover the truth: that her world has been twisted by people trying to save it. And her choices will determine whether humankind's last ember flickers out.

A rural-dystopian novel exploring post-apocalyptic Amish country, a society shaped by fear, and private choices that remake the world. 

Available on Amazon on June 14th, 2019. Preorder now!

Review:

The Nothing Within is not my usual type of story. I just plain don't typically go for dystopia. It just isn't a genre I typically enjoy too much. However, when I do find one I can like, I tend to love it. This was one such book. I loved The Nothing Within for all the things it did that others won't, or can't, do.

Come to think of it, I don't typically enjoy the storyteller narration style, either. Yet, Root telling all that was and all that is and getting around to what is to come? This time, the way Andy Giesler does it, well just worked for me this time It was just plain well done. Root tells her life, or at least a portion of it, within the pages of The Nothing Within. It isn't a pretty nor glamorous life. The way Root tells it, it is just a normal life and she did a few things that weren't so normal.

I really liked the main character, Root. She is great. Headstrong and asks way too many questions that the adults won't (or can't) answer. She is not willing to back down for anything, even though she knows it makes the others fear and hate her. Even when she knows it would be smart, she doesn't. Root is also blind. Which doesn't stop her in whatever she wants to do. Which is typically things that seeing people are afraid to do.

The Nothing Within isn't a happy story. Nor is it depressing, and it didn't send me into despair. In fact, if we are to believe Root, the story just is. Root does a good job of telling the story so that you aren't overloaded with all of the hell she goes through. She just presents the story as if it's just something everyone would go through. It isn't what anyone else would go through, because Root is quite special and way too stubborn, but she is very humble about it. Perhaps too humble, because giiiirl you have gone through some shit. Own it!

The story shifts between past and present, sometimes in the same sentence. There are also two levels of past: root's childhood and the time of Reckoning, when the world broke itself. The distant past is interesting, as we see how society starts to form itself into what we end up with by the time Root is a child. Then there is the time that is "now" when Root is telling the story about her past. Sometimes, Root will talk about both the then and now in the same paragraph, which was a bit confusing when it first started happening. There are also little bits of songs or tales told in between the rest of the narration. The storyteller narration was used well, even if I didn't like it in the beginning it grew on me by the end.

There is one scene about a third of the way through that I just can't get over, and I need to talk about. It involves sex and it is....bizarre. I don't even know how to categorise it.  I nearly quit the book over it, even. Fortunately for the book, and for me, the scene ends "well", even if it left a lasting impression on me. From that scene onwards, nothing else like it comes up again (thankfully), and the book got even better from that point onwards. Just, getting through that scene...yikes!

I just really loved the story in The Nothing Within. I loved the high technology reasons in a low technology world. I loved the way the knowledge has shifted over the millenia. I loved the fact that Root is blind, and she is getting by in a world that is quite hostile to her. I just really liked the book, and I'm glad I read it. Even if I don't typically care for dystopia, I cared for this.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Andy Giesler, Humble Quill LLC, and Netgalley for providing the opportunity to review this copy!

Wow. That was incredible. A post-apocalyptic tale set in an Amish community following Root, a young woman forging her own path in the world.
It has been left open for a sequel. Can't wait!

Scary book about the future. This could really happen. I enjoyed the plot. I liked the characters and the pace of book.

The Nothing Within is certainly a page turning. Both in that it is a gripping read and that there are 32 titles pages.

I prefer shorter reads, 300 pages or so is what I generally pick up. This being over 500 pages was a bit off-putting for me, but it is a quick and easy read. It is enjoyable and well put together. Narration wise, it was not what I was expecting… and at times I did not enjoy, but I did receive an uncorrected proof which may have pending edits.

I enjoyed Andy Giesler writing style and tone. I recommend it.

I like this story quite a lot. It is written in a long-winded and freewheeling style that usually I find abhorrent. Somehow, that same narrative style is part of the charm of the story. The backbone of the narrative is presented in the voice of a young woman from a far distant future, relating her tale in the first person. It switches occasionally to the third person, where other voices work as a sort of chorus. (I find that particular point disconcerting, but it didn't detract terribly from the story.)

I'll not give away any plot points. Part of the joy is piecing together who is who and what roll each person plays in the story. (It is complex and spans many generations.) But I will say the narrator is a funny, charming, and appealing character, who serves as the main protagonist of the tale. She has great grit and determination (both qualities I admire in a main character) and is both unusually forgiving and ruthlessly merciless as circumstance demand. Those shifts of her personality always are natural and understandable.

The science of the story might be difficult to believe, but it is anchored in place by good writing, compelling characters, and great wit and humor.

I generally don't like tales what could even loosely be called Dystopian, but if you do, I think you'll like this. I recommend it.

I really loved this book!! It was a great post apocalyptic story with well written characters that had you cheering for them all the way!

The Nothing Within
by Andy Giesler
A breath of fresh air in a post apocalyptic genre. Based of the idea of technology being mans down fall. This encompassing book looks at the world after technology turns on us. Scientist finding the idea that nano bots could fix the human body is appealing. This book should serve like Issac Asimov, as a caution of mankind's inability to predict the outcome of their achievement. The world has come to a Reckoning. The nano tech with in, can spread from host to host, and some of it is not benign, but malignant in is perversion of the code. Warping the mind and body of its victims, it has become a danger to all men. The robotic parts of the technology ignore their basic code, they ignore their route commands. This is why there needed to be a reckoning, they needed to turn off the nano bots in the world. The balance of control and chaos is difficult. The resilience of human nature, is a testament in this book, the ability of men to pass knowledge from one generation to another through stories. It is the truth of the stories that will enable man to survive.

A phenomenal post-apocalyptic story about the resilience of human nature and the dangers of ignorance in an attempt to protect people from themselves. The main character was unique, opinionated, brave, and intelligent. Supporting characters were incredibly real, gritty with hard truths and poignant illustrations of humanity. Honestly, I couldn't put it down. The mysteries of the past were slowly uncovered as events in the present became ever more frantic. I was dying to find out what had really happened and I couldn't believe, right up until the end, that would ever turn out all right. The mix of present storytelling of past events illuminated by even more ancient events only found out later was brilliant. I couldn't recommend it more.

This was a page turner! It was really hard to put down.

It's a rather thought provoking story about the end of the world.
Told through the voice of two strong women, Ruth Troyer and Root, and even though they lived thousand of years apart, it blended gorgeously.

My opinion? Wow, just WOW.

In the prologue at the beginning of The Nothing Within, by Andy Giesler, we see two characters fighting over a terrible decision. It’s not clear until later what that decision is: nullifying all of the advanced nanotechnology in the world. (And it’s not until much later that we find out why those characters made that decision.) Centuries later, a woman named Root tells the story of her life to a group of young children. So much has changed for a society that, these days, is still not allowed to develop any kind of technology beyond 1700s-level. Stories are the only way to pass on knowledge…but it appears that those stories haven’t always told the truth.

Young Root has always been on the outs with her village of Surecreek. She was born blind, which folks have been able to get used to. The bigger problems are that she asks too many questions and is too willing to push the boundaries. She loves going over the village wall to explore. She loves to practice the Shepard’s Dance (martial arts). She really wants to know more about the super-powered Shepards and the monstrous chimerae that haunt the World That Is. Still, she manages to stay just within the bounds of acceptable behavior for years until it appears that she’s either going to develop her own super powers or that she might turn into a monster.

While Root tries to figure out what to do with herself, we get chapters from the diary of an Amish woman who is dealing with the fall out from the decision to turn off all the tech. Being Amish, Ruth herself doesn’t have much truck with advanced technology. But because the Amish seem to be the only people who know how to get along without, Ruth’s community becomes a target for “strays” who want food and shelter and for the strays who want to take over and create a little empire for themselves.

I was less interested in the lost technology or the event that created a dystopia. The Nothing Inside doesn’t dwell too much on this; a lot of the tech remains mysterious. This is a good idea, given how glutted the bookstores are with dystopias. Being the story-obsessed person that I am, I was hooked by the way that Ruth’s story became Root’s mythology. I loved seeing how a society created itself from Amish plainness, a new origin story, and lots and lots of time. The fact that all of this is wrapped around one of my favorite kick-ass, funny female characters I’ve seen in a while. I really, really liked Root. I loved sitting at her metaphorical feet, listening to her adventures.