Book Review: After the Great Storm by Ann Dombroski

In After the Great Storm Ann Dombroski has created a dark apocalyptic world with violent storms that lash Sydney's CBD. 

Alice's husband Daniel is in prison charged with causing a derailment on the city's transport system resulting in lives lost. Anna believes Daniel is innocent and is gathering information to prove his innocence. 

I was immersed in a world where Alice is not only battling the catastrophic weather she is also trying to manage the mounting bills alone whilst contacting lawyers and gathering information about the faulty transport system. I could feel her desperation as she came up against corruption everywhere she looked for help. The number of people Alice could trust was shrinking fast.

 

When a woman arrives on her doorstep on the brink of death Alice can not turn her away and finds herself embroiled in the murky world of human experimentation. 

 

Set in 2075, After the Great Storm is a speculative fiction novel with an environmental lean. It is never explained why the violent storms are destroying the city and it appears that country areas were not affected. I would have liked more information on why this was happening.

 

I found the different plot-lines didn't feel cohesive although they did eventually come together.

 

The world of After the Great Storm has many areas of moral ambiguity as Alice chides a doctor for accepting bribes then offers him a bribe to perform her IVF procedure whilst her husband is in prison. 

With themes of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, human experimentation, biomimetic material for organ transplants, self drive pods and companion robots, it is a future world that is not unbelievable.

 

The beautifully described scenes and foreboding suspense kept me reading, eager to see how Alice would get her life back on track. 

After the Great Storm is the perfect read for fans of science fiction and apocalyptic novels.

 

My rating 3 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐

 

Publisher: Transit Lounge

Publication date: 2nd February 2025

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 304

RRP: AU$32.99 (paperback)

Source: Courtesy of the publisher