Journal of the Flood [Hardcover]

David Ely (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 1992

In a near-future, half-flooded world governed by technobureaucracy and ultraconformity, where human contact is abhorrent and passion unheard of, William Fowke already has a reputation as a trouble-maker. And now he insists that the Wall - the engineering marvel that keeps what remains of America's East Coast from being inundated by the Atlantic Ocean - is leaking. Convicted of sedition and 'excluded', Fowke begins a horrific, thrilling odyssey through a nether world of gulags. With the exception of agent Julia Keller, who arrested him, everyone is hostile, including his former bosses and fellow prisoners, leaving Fowke excluded even by the excluded. And desperate to get back to his threatened Wall to sound the alarm.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Ely's sardonic futuristic fable, attack-robots serve as watchdogs of a Big Brother government, humans are produced in test tubes and families are a thing of the past. Most people don't have sex as we know it, they "experience" in contraptions called stimulators. Those who breed in the old-fashioned way are "the excluded," condemned to jungle colonies and reservations. Baltimore engineer William Fowke is branded a troublemaker in this highly impersonal, ultraconformist society when he reports a seepage in the Wall, a massive dike which holds back the Atlantic, allowing millions of Americans to inhabit an artifically extended Eastern seaboard. For his whistleblowing, Fowke is imprisoned in an "excluded" colony, then shipped off to Kansas. His escape to Washington, D.C., and his interaction with Julia, the icy arresting officer who may love him, occupy the second half of a story that we know is headed for cataclysm. In this parable of chilling power and piercing beauty, Ely ( Seconds ) balances the impersonaliity of his many robotlike or emotionally stunted characters with dramatic scenes and black comedy.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Through the "journal" of William Fowke, Ely tells a tale of a society of the future obsessed with the individual, a society where intimacy of any kind is taboo. Fowke is an engineer on a giant sea wall built between Nova Scotia and the Florida Keys. The wall is leaking in his sector, and the Orwellian bureaucracy suppresses this dangerous information. When Fowke tries to disseminate the truth, he is labeled an outcast. His odyssey begins as he tries to stay ahead of the law and warn of impending disaster. Along the way he asks himself, "Was I prepared to sacrifice myself for my tribe?" His answer is no. His Epiphany at the end results in a change of heart to "maybe" at least for his tribe of two (Fowke and the romantic interest). Journal works as a parable; if a reader needs details, however, Journal will not satisfy. Ely fails to explain how Fowke gets from A to B either physically or mentally. How can a man of the 22nd century make a transition from total dependence on technology to survival in the wilderness? Ely never says. This speculative fiction is an interesting diversion but not an essential purchase.
- Randall L. Schroeder, Augustana Coll. Lib., Rock Island, Ill.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 234 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; 1 edition (January 27, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556112726
• ISBN-13: 978-1556112720
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,232,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Leads the reader down untraveled roads., April 15, 2010

By 

Blanche W. Baker - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Journal of the Flood Year (Paperback)

A very visual read that keeps you thinking long after the book has been closed. You look forward to reading other works he has written.

4.0 out of 5 stars This book dares me to review it, September 20, 2007

By 

Bob Manson (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Journal of the Flood (Hardcover)

David Ely, a seemingly mysterious writer, has written two novels (and a boatload of excellent short stories). One, Seconds, was made into an four-star movie directed by John Frankenheimer--and I'm sure the movie more than benefitted from the quality of the original work.

The other, Journal of the Flood Year, seems to have been sunk in the typical sea of lousy sci-fi... yet I found it to be a standout work. It portrays an dark (but, unfortunately, realistic) future where people do their utmost to avoid personal contact, sex is done completly via simulation, robots are everywhere, and the US is surrounded by a gigantic wall holding the sea back.

At the beginning of the novel our protagonist discovers the wall is starting to leak. A terrible misfortune for him, because nobody wants to hear about it--and they go to extreme lengths to make sure he doesn't tell them. The rest of the story covers his cross-continent adventures in trying to find someone to pay attention. Darkly humorous at times, and the novel's final ending was a bit of a surprise.

The author often avoids describing things in any detail, and it's left entirely to your wits to imagine what the robots look like, or many of the other devices used in the book. I think that's good, but others may not.

It's got a few problems; it occasionally seems to rely on technological gobbledygook to advance the plot, though it works because the author never tries to explain any of it. (Just trying to imagine a giant wall holding the sea back makes my head spin.) I would've enjoyed more emphasis on the contrast of a society enforcing isolation versus the innate human desire for personal contact, but overall I'd say this was handled pretty well.

Worth reading? I think so. It's not a light read, and a few parts are more than a bit disturbing, but it was worth the journey.