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Home > Categories > Books > Young Adult > Arid Earth 1 : The Knowledge Keeper review
lateau à fromageIn a climate-changed world, the Library is the lifeblood of civilisation. And it's about to have a heart attack... If it hadn't been for the man in white body paint appearing out of the darkness, my Bus would now be a broken steel carcass in a smoking hole. Someone set a landmine in ambush for the Library vehicle, a mobile repository of information saved from before the War. A beacon of knowledge in the ashes of civilisation, and my sole responsibility. Someone tried to take it from me. To stop the flow of free information. To steal from the people scratching out a living on the dusty frontier, just one cloudship delivery away from desiccation.
Now, other Keepers are missing. And not just Keepers. People have been disappearing from camps and settlements scattered across the outback. Why didn't we know about it? The Library is supposed to know everything. That's its whole purpose, to save and share knowledge. Isn't it? I have to warn New Pearth. After all, this is what I was trained for. Though the Library could never have predicted a plot this savage, or this well-organised. But first, with only a psychotic ex-slave and a digital ghost to help, I have to survive the trip...
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Review by: mizim (Miriam)
Dated: 11th of June, 2023
The Knowledge Keeper takes place years after the world as we know it has ended, set in Australia which has become confined and its survivors spread out and secluded. Our main character travels to the various settlement in a 'library bus', a well-fortified machine which carries information, blueprints and news. When Vai encounters an aboriginal man in the middle of the road, she is saved from the landmine and thus begins to unravel the mystery of missing Keepers (who drive the buses) and missing people. Pawley has done a good job at building this post-apocalyptic world, from the people to the new ways of delivering news and needed supplies.
The book is well-paced and keeps itself realistic enough for what happens in it. When injuries occur, there isn't a quick fix (and this will be interesting to see how it is dealt with in the upcoming book) and it is easy to feel the difference between the grimy, just surviving settlements, and the main city New Pearth. I liked that we still have the mystery of the aboriginal people, who retreated into the desert, with them popping up a few times but no real answers given on their lives now - I wonder if we will learn more down the line. The book wraps itself up well, I find myself enjoying books more and more if I can read them as a stand-alone and not have to read a second book in order to not miss out on anything. But, I do look forward to reading the next in this series.
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Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
