THE HERMIT THRUSH SINGS

Butler’s first novel has plausibility problems, but readers may be drawn to the characters inhabiting this post-holocaust fantasy. Over a century after the destruction of civilization by a giant meteor’s impact, the former state of Maine has become the country of Maynor, governed by a vaguely-defined Rulership that stays in power through a corps of red-coated, musket-bearing Guards. Born with a webbed left hand and the ability to see the future, young Leora breaks away from her village and cruel stepfamily, taking a captured baby “birmba” (a mutant bear-ape) back to its mother, finding temporary shelter in a settlement of serape-wearing descendants of migrant workers, then going on to help a band of women foment a rebellion. The plot hinges on contrivances, from conveniently overheard conversations to a company of guards that fails to post sentries and sleeps while a munitions storehouse next door is emptied; in contrast, Leora’s painful self-consciousness is realistically drawn, and the fearsome, gentle, intelligent birmbas make engaging companions for her. Devoted fans of the post-disaster genre may take to this, but for depth of character and detail, there are far more precisely imagined outsider tales, from Eloise McGraw’s Moorchild (1996) to Anne Mazer’s Oxboy (1993). (Fiction. 11-13)