Terra Electrica: The Guardians of the North by Antonia Maxwell is the first book in a series, and I can’t wait to see where the others take us.
The story follows Mani in the wake of her father’s disappearance. Choosing to disobey his instructions to ‘stay put’ when her food supply runs out, Mani meets Leo – a scientist – who makes a remarkable discovery. Mani is immune from the disease that killed her mother and a large portion of the population.
The book is set in a post-apocalyptic world. As the icecaps melted, they left behind a disease which impacts the way human bodies interact with electricity. There’s an element of The Last of Us to this – a man and a girl journeying across a landscape devoid of hope in an attempt to deliver a cure.
But it’s also more than that. Mani has inherited a wooden mask – an artefact that lets her escape to another world where she can communicate with animals. I thought that this was a really unique touch – I’ve come across a lot of dystopian books, but few which incorporate fantasy elements into the end of the Anthropocene.
This is definitely a book for the older end of the MG spectrum, pushing into YA. I know that my youngest (9) wouldn’t be able to cope with the ingenious use of seal bodies for raft building, for example, or the bodies of people that are found in the cottage along Mani and Leo’s journey to the Ark.
I’ve spoken before about how I feel about dystopian books in general – specifically in regards to Feast of Ashes and The Remembering. Whilst Maxwell very much hits similar notes to Williamson, this book doesn’t feel anywhere near as bleak. The way in which Mani makes use of the plastic bottles left behind by our generation, or the way Tilde uses an old truck as a look-out post feels so much more… human. No, it’s not as hopeful as Orrom’s work, but it does show a way forward in which people make the best of a situation, and I think that’s fundamentally human nature. People are wonderful – our systems are not.
There’s a lot more I could say about this book, but as a story that’s heavily plot-driven, I don’t want to give too much away. I would definitely urge you to pick up a copy, and I’ll be waiting for the next instalment.
About the Book:
Book 1 in an action-packed dystopian adventure series set in the near-future post-melt Arctic.
The last ice cap has melted, and the world is on the brink of collapse. A deadly force—Terra Electrica—has been unleashed. It feeds on electricity. It is infecting civilization.
In this chaotic, rapidly changing reality, 12-year-old Mani has lost her family and community to the Terra Electrica. Armed only with some ancestral wisdom and a powerful, ancient wooden mask she was never meant to inherit so soon, she suddenly finds herself responsible for the fate of the world.
Can Mani piece everything together and harness her newfound powers in time to save humanity?
About the Author:
Antonia Maxwell is a writer and editor based in North Essex and Cambridge, UK. With a degree in Modern Languages and a long-standing career as a book editor, she has a lifelong curiosity for language and words, and a growing fascination in the power of story – the way it shapes our lives and frames our experience.
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THE INQUISITIVE NEWT 