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Same hunger, subtler games.

Heathcock’s dystopian tale, set in a near-future America decimated by the ravages of climate change, conjures a haunting mood despite an abundance of familiar tropes. These primarily derive from Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series: Both follow the tribulations of a tough, competent young woman from an impoverished family struggling to survive in a hostile natural setting, plucked from obscurity by a totalitarian system eager to exploit her as a symbol to sway the hearts and minds of a desperate populace. Our protagonist, Mazzy Goodwin, like Katniss Everdeen, is motivated by concern for a younger sister and assisted by a stalwart boy from back home as she navigates the treacherous schemes of an oppressive governing body that cloaks its atrocities in the rhetoric of freedom and salvation. Also like Katniss, who took on the mantle of the Mockingjay, Mazzy embodies an avian theme: She’s called the Seraphine, named for the angelic wings that grow from her back. This is where the two works diverge: Where Collins concentrates on realistic worldbuilding and grounds her heroine in a wealth of naturalistic detail, Heathcock crafts something closer to a fable; Mazzy’s wings are desultorily explained late in the narrative, and the workings of the sinister Novae Terrae, a militaristic cult led by the enigmatic visionary Jo Sam, are conveyed in fleeting glimpses and evoked in poetically vague descriptions. Miraculous technological wonders and climatological disasters buffet the suffering multitudes who, as ever, are subject to the whims of Mother Nature and human nature, equally destructive forces immune to reason. Mazzy remains a passive character through much of the action, becoming embroiled in a revolutionary plot she doesn’t really understand, and her dour, humorless perspective, while understandable, casts a pall over the punishing narrative. Ultimately, though, Heathcock produces striking alchemy from these unpromising elements, as the cumulative impact of elusive, evocative details and a growing sense of moral horror deliver an emotional wallop that leaves the reader feeling unnerved and strangely bereft.

The dystopian ingredients are familiar, but Heathcock combines them in a potent metaphorical stew.