The Sixth Seal (Piper Plus) [Paperback]

Mary Wesley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 6, 1991 | Series: Piper

After a mysterious apocalypse destroys the world, the few survivors must learn how to coexist in desperate times.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British novelist Wesley ( A Sensible Life ; the YA fantasy Haphazard House ) brings a quirky and graceful sensibility to this tale set in the English countryside in the near future. An unspecified disaster has wiped out much of the world's population, and Miriam, her 13-year-old son, Paul, and his best friend, Henry, find that most of their human and animal neighbors have been reduced to fly-away piles of fur, wool, feathers and hair, occasionally accompanied by sets of dentures. These three establish contact with a nearby abbey and set up house with a motley gang of survivors (including two skating champions, the village grave-digger and an upholsterer with a soft spot for thieves). In cool, meticulous prose, the author imagines the nitty-gritty of daily life after the apocalypse. Travel, for example, is difficult but not impossible: rollerskating is one way of getting about, and so is a leap-frogging method of changing cars, finding a new vehicle whenever the road is blocked by wreckage. Though subject matter and setting call to mind Peter Dickinson's Changes trilogy, this quietly satisfying novel is not so much high adventure as it is a meditation on what it means to create one's own world. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-8-Another enigmatic tale from the author of Haphazard House (Overlook, 1993), this was originally published in England in 1984 as a revised version of a 1969 story. After news reports of plague, famine, and oddly colored snow in various parts of the world, Muriel, her son Paul, and his best friend wake one morning to find that nearly all other life in their rural community has vanished. As they slowly join other survivors-a gravedigger, three monks, the crew from a Yugoslavian submarine, and several more-it becomes clear that some, though not all, were saved by being underground (the author makes no great effort to explain the exceptions). The boys adapt easily to their new life, dashing off to loot stores and explore neighboring towns, and Muriel, grieving over the recent death of her husband, copes ably but numbly with hers. They go to London, a bedlam where heavily armed survivors are desperately killing one another; they barely escape. Except for this episode, the story has a peaceful, gently humorous air created by deft dialogue, many Briticisms, and a quirky cast. The ending, however, may leave readers confused. Wesley implies that the disaster, which remains unexplained, was neither natural nor manmade, and signals some sort of vast but puzzlingly undefined epiphany in Muriel. Next to books such as John Christopher's Empty World (Dutton, 1978; o.p.) or the novels of J.G. Ballard, this one seems mild and muddled.
John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan; New Ed edition (December 6, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330305131
• ISBN-13: 978-0330305136
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,168,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, September 19, 2002

By 

Scott Mac (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sixth Seal (Hardcover)

I found this story among the books on tape at our local library. It was one my children had not read and so I took it out to preview it. Listening to it during my hour-long drive to and from work, I found this story haunting.

One terrible night, a cloud of some unspecified but man-made substance passes over the surface of the entire earth, causing all living organisms unfortunate enough to be found above ground to vanish suddenly. The central characters, a recently widowed mother, her son and her son's friend, awake after spending the night in a makeshift fort in the old foundation of a silo to a world in which everyone in their small English village and in the world beyond, and most of the animals, have disappeared. The only evidence that the disappeared ever existed is the hair they left behind on their pillows and in the cars that litter the roads, having crashed as soon as their drivers were gone.

What I found most haunting about the story is the way the author evokes the emptiness of the world in which the protagonists find themselves, especially its profound silence. Since the birds and insects disappeared along with most of the people and other animals, there is simply nothing to make noise. A true silence pervades the changed world, silence the survivors have never known. Many is the time since listening to The Sixth Seal that I have noted the noise that constantly surrounds us all no matter where we are - the songs of birds and buzzes of insects, music from passing cars and houses, the rumble of automobiles, distant trucks and airplanes flying high overhead.

This story focuses not on how the apocalypse happened, but on how the survivors cope with the horror of the empty new world to which they awake. The disaster described seemed particularly relevant in the age of genetically modified organisms and biological weapons. The behavior of the characters is not that of the frenetic heroes of movies, but of individuals numb with shock and struggling to find the will to survive. This story struck me as a strikingly realistic vision of how people would act in the face of a suddenly depopulated world, what choices they would face and how they might choose. I recommend it to all ages, especially as a book to listen to on a long car trip.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars something you can read again and again, January 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sixth Seal (Hardcover)

I found this book in a pile of discarded libary books, it was 15 years old, i was drawn to it only because i had enjoyed other Mary Wesley books. However the 'The Sixth Seal' turned out to be nothing like the rest. I found it impossible to put down, it made me comtemplate things that in my short 13 years i had never before considered. In truth the book terrifies me, but reassures me at the same time, i feel in some way perpared now for a world disaster. I am now 17 and have just rediscovered the book for the 4 time and am enjoying it just as much. What surprises me is that i have meet no one else who has let alone the book, i tried to make a friend read it but she never did, just so that i could share it with someone else. I most definitely recommend this book and i would love to hear from anyone who appreciates it as much as me.