Tent City: No Malingering in These Hills

An Author Requested Review

Title: Tent City

Author(s): Kelly Van Hull

Publisher: Kelly Van Hull
Copyright: 2013
ISBN-10: 1482754533
ISBN-13: 978-1482754537
Format: ebook, paperback (340 pages)
Genre: Young Adult, Speculative Fiction
Part of Series: Yes
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Not Quite a Dream Come True

 Who hasn’t wanted to run away from home? Like most teenagers, I dreamed about freedom from parental rules and taking charge of my own life. However, none of those dreams included my parents telling me to run away or insisting I take my younger siblings with me. That would have turned the dream into a nightmare! Yet that is exactly what happens to 17-year-old Dani and her 5-year-old brother, Brody, in Kelly Van Hull’s novel, Tent City.  This young adult fiction weaves a story realistic enough to be believable with a dystopian future. The story, in first person point of view, tells how  the Army, renamed the Council, under the leadership of General Burke controls all resources to “protect” citizens from starvation after locusts destroyed most of the crops. And now they want to “protect” children between the ages of five and eighteen.

Van Hull captures our sympathy immediately with the opening line, “It feels a lot like the night my brother Drake died.” In one line Van Hull ties creates reader empathy as well a scene tension as Dani’s parents sit her at the kitchen table and tell her she needs to run away with her little brother. Uncle Randy, who’s “high up” in the Army, has warned them that the Council “fears if too many more deaths occur, the human population may be in danger of extinction.” The answer, of course, is to put the children in safety camps where procreation may be assured. Van Hull shows us lingering uncertainties through Dani’s statement, “The year they took over is when most people died. Doesn’t that seem weird to you?” Hesitant to take on the sole responsibility of her brother, she’s given a choice between hiding in the cellar and running off to hide in the Black Hills. Dani chooses the latter. But she isn’t some self-assured, arrogant teenager. She questions her ability to take care of Brody on her own and insists that her best friend, Kit, comes with them.

The Ride of a Lifetime

This fast-paced ride begins as Dani, Brody and Kit head for Black Hills on the family’s four-wheelers. As they follow a map Dani’s father marked to their cabin and Kit proves her value by being the only one who can actually read it. The plot is riveting, regardless of your age, as we follow the trio deep into the woods. Dani gets her four-wheeler stuck in the river and the group is rescued by a mysterious travelling teenager named Jack. While Kit is flirtatious, Dani is cautious and sends him on his way post-haste.  Dani and Kit create an interesting dichotomy of characters. Kit’s practical skills are coupled with playfulness and Dani’s guardedness is combined with curiosity. These contradictory skills come in handy when the trio reaches their destination, only to find the cabin already occupied and surrounded by a small city of tents.

Tent City is of full of dichotomies. There’s Bentley, the hard-nosed community leader and the previously mentioned, mild-mannered Jack. They obviously know each other and don’t like each other, but denied this to Dani. Jack and Bentley are as opposite as Kit and Dani. Where Bentley is a harsh, Jack is compassionate; where Jack focuses on helping others with his healing skills, Bentley focuses on fighting and conducting raids for supplies. They are an irresistible puzzle to Dani, who must find out the secrets which seem to surround them both.

Kelly Van Hull crafts a compelling story filled with puzzles and opposites. Who are Jack and Bentley and how do they know one another? How can they both have such exceptional yet opposite skills? What does the “spiritual awakening” after the locusts have to do with the Council’s control? How can Dani protect Brody when she feels barely about to take care of herself? Will Dani, Brody and Kit ever be able to bet back home? The ride is worthwhile, so read Tent City and learn, as Dani does, that answers sometimes yield more questions.

Ask Yourself, “What If?”

A movie review by Rhodes FitzWilliam

Title: By Dawn’s Early Light
Author(s): Teleplay by Bruce Gilbert, based on the novel, Trinity’s Child, by William Prochnau
Director: Jack Sholder
Copyright: 1990
ASIN: B00021R7CG
Format: Made for TV Movie, Available on disk
Genre: Speculative Fiction
Rating:4 ½ out of 5

Stars Nuclear Uncertainty

We live in a generation once removed from the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union and its ever-present threat of nuclear war. Our children and grandchildren don’t watch fearful adults stocking food in the basement or neighbors building bomb shelters. They don’t practice the emergency “duck and cover” in school. And that’s a good thing. It doesn’t, however, mean that those nuclear warheads have been decommissioned. On the contrary, according to an April 2013 Update from the Arms Control Association, the United States and the former Soviet Union have over 8,000 nuclear weapons. And, let’s be clear, accidents can still happen. The check and balance system in place can still fail to function. And now we live under the threat of terrorists, who may gain access to those nuclear weapons. That’s why I believe the Bruce Gilbert’s teleplay, By Dawn’s Early Light, is just as relevant today as it was when it aired on television in 1990.

By Dawn’s Early Light features an exceptional cast. Powers Boothe plays the hard-core B-52 pilot, Cassidy, and Rebecca De Mornay plays his co-pilot, Moreau, who acts as the voice of conscience. James Earl Jones stars as Alice, the general in charge of Looking Glass (an Air Force command plane), and Martin Landau as the President of the United States. But it’s not just the cast that makes this movie good. It’s the premise that terrorists might be able to access nuclear weapons and that a response system that depends heavily on computer-coordinated attacks can break down, which happens in this movie. The situation is set when a dissident group within the Soviet military uses a nuclear warhead on a Soviet city. The Soviet’s computer-controlled response system automatically sends bombs to pre-set targets within the United States. The President is warned about the ensuing attack by General Renning, played by Nicolas Coster, who is in charge of NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command). Renning needs “the codes” to initiate the counter-attack. Luckily, the Soviet leader sends a teletype directly to the President telling him the attack was automated and not an intentional act of war. The Soviet leader agrees to accept an equally devastating attack from the United States in order to stop a full-scale nuclear war. The President agrees, against the dire warning of the General Renning that he is “being conned on a level unprecedented in history.” But the President stands firm as he gives NORAD the codes with orders to limit the first counter-attack. Thus begins a dialogue between the two super-power leaders to stop an inevitable full-scale automated war. The objective is set: to “turn off” the nuclear war. Like all quests, complications and deterrents stand in the way.

To War or Not to War, That is the Question

The story complications grow when NORAD informs the President that the Soviet Union has launched a second attack. They can’t tell where these missiles are targeted, but he says, “With god as my witness, it makes no difference…” because in accordance with the current treaty, the Chinese will now automatically attack Russia. General Redding tells the President that all communication with the Soviet Union is down and the Russian President may not even be in control. Then NORAD is destroyed and the President’s helicopter is downed by an off-track missile, leaving the Secretary of the Interior in charge of the primary command plane as Condor. Condor accepts the direction of Col. Fargo, Rip Torn, and wants to “win” a nuclear war. Thus two factions emerge within the chain of command, an injured President without proper codes trying to stop the war and Condor who has them trying to escalate it, each vying for legitimacy. Each member of the military, from the rank-in-files to the generals must now choose which orders they believe are correct.

Scenes change rapidly within this face-paced movie, making it a terrific watch. Even though it contains some profanity, it’s within the context of accepted military dialogue. I’ve shown By Dawn’s Early Light to a high school class to stimulate class discussion because it makes the audience think about what they would do if they were given orders to destroy a city and the penalty for disobeying was death? Like questions about those who stood by as the Nazis committed genocide against the Jew, it forces you to think, where would you stand? By Dawn’s Early Light is definitely on my “Must Watch” list and, believe me, you won’t be disappointed. In fact, I can’t wait to read the book on which it’s based, Trinity’s Child, to compare the two.

Reviewed by Rhodes FitzWilliam