Flooded: Winner of the Klaus Flugge Prize for Illustration 2023

Product Information

Resist the urge to control the uncontrollable by finding peace in between the problem and the promise.

I imagine this book happened this way. A group of intelligent science fiction writers were sitting around a table and drinking perhaps a bit too much and they were making a list of the worst science fiction movies of all time. Stephen Baxter who was a little drunk at the time shouts out "Waterworld!" and everyone laughs especially at the fish gilled Kevin Costner character. And seriously where did all that water come from! And then Stephen got a glassy look on his face and said you know what? I can make that work! I can make Waterworld plausible. His friends all laughed in his face, so Stephen got determined and unlike most ideas we get when we are drinking he said not only will I make Waterworld plausible I'll create a TRILOGY! So there you have it whether you asked for it or not you now have a plausible version of Waterworld. I totally lost myself in this book. In the catastrophic events that unfold, the nightmarish situations that worsened with every chapter. It was scary, horrific, and depressing... but at the same time, resilient. A very strong story that captured the spirit of humanity in a race for survival, peppered with shaky and complicated relationships. When the ocean rises as fast as it does in this post-apocalyptic world, what can you really do to beat it? I found myself wondering about that often enough, and was horrified to see where it led the survivors. The earliest recorded stories of floods appear in the literature of Mesopotamia – the flood-prone territory of modern-day Iraq that the Greeks called the “land between the rivers”. “Ever the river has risen and brought us the flood, / the mayfly floating on the water,” says one couplet in The Epic of Gilgamesh, which encapsulates the idea of flooding as seasonal and sustaining. Yet it is also profoundly destructive. In an early version of the poem, inundation brings death into the world. Before it, men could die “from acts of violence, from disease and otherwise at the will of the gods, but not naturally from old age”, writes Andrew George in his introduction to the Penguin Classics edition. “From the time of the Deluge onwards, death is to follow life as a matter of course.” The final version of Gilgamesh contains all the ingredients of the Noah myth: the deluge sent by a vengeful god; the righteous man who rides out the rising waters in an ark; the birds sent to look for land. Floods and storms would be read as confirmation of divine ill will for thousands of years.

In the Ocean

I really wanted to like this book. I really did. I am a huge fan of apocalyptic fiction. On the surface, this book seems to fit the bill. The seas are rising, the earth is flooding - what will humanity do to survive? What's not to like - right? Well, it turns out - quite a bit. The book’s strength is, oddly for a “hard” science fiction effort, in the characters. Each is a well crafted and unique personality. Most are personable enough that we care about their fates, sometimes grudgingly, others are distasteful enough that we also care about their fates, although perhaps with animosity. But our affection or disdain won’t last nearly as long as the book — the end simply takes too long to reach. The first half or so moves adequately fast, when the extent of the disaster is still being revealed, but once we are clued in to the world’s ultimate fate... the details of how individuals react are undoubtedly necessary, but not riveting enough to keep things interesting. I have seen this book called 'hard sci-fi', but it is difficult to understand why. There are various scientific 'facts' scattered throughout the book, but few of them are relevant to the story and there are no scientific explanations for anything that does happen. There are also a lot of errors in various scientific fields, including hydrodynamics, communication technology, oceanography, climatology, genetics and even some of the geography (he sinks the Urals and Caucasus far too soon). I assume the author can plot an exponential curve, he is a mathematics graduate, but gives no reason why sea level rise should be exponential. He cannot decide whether the polar ice caps are melting or not. Well, yes, actually: most of what should pass for a story. What purpose do the characters serve? I mean, other than to keep the reader up to date. How about some emotion? What little there is seems to have a misogynistic bent. Consider this:

In Flooded, counselor and bestselling author, Allison Edwards explains how parents, teachers, and counselors can identify when children have entered The Flood Zone. She also offers suggestions for teaching children (and adults!) how to regain control of their emotions. With this book I worked to maintain the freshness and spontaineity that I was creating in my sketchbook, being able to translate into final artwork. The main technique used in this artwork was acrylic ink, with deep pen and dry brushes. I also used graphite for some textures. I assembled all images together and added color in Photoshop.Baxterin Tulva-duologia alkaa aika groteskisti, jopa minun väkivaltaan turtunut mieleni kohahti kun luin panttivankien kohtelusta. Onneksi se on ainoa kirjassa esiintyvä äklö-gore-kohta.

We do our part, but God does the hardest. He never expects us to carry the weight of what it means to believe Him / above all our doubts. Trust often feels like the hard thing … in the midst of the hard thing. But I have to also remind myself that God has a habit of doing holy things in the midst of the hard things.” (p. 118-119) Flooded is the funny and beautifully illustrated tale of animals who live in a city that is ever so slowly flooding. The pacing was fast, choppy even at times and the narrative quite disjointed. the ending came with a large dose of skepticism on my part as it was unbelievable and unsatisfactory.

You may also like…

Stephen Baxter is a prolific author, and it shows in a number of his works - they are very Clarkian, taking an interesting idea (in this case a vast planet drowning flood) and following it to it's conclusion. Genre: This wordless book would fall under the Fiction genre because it is not about one specific family. Under the umbrella of Fiction it would be considered a Realistic Fiction book because a flood is an event that can, and does, happen all the time to people in real life. Having kids read this Realistic Fiction book could teach them what it is like for people who experience floods and give them something to relate to if they have experienced one for themselves. As the water continues to rise and humans try to find a way to explain or beat the flood, chaos takes over every corner of the world. And countries start to disappear. I was horrified when I read about what happens to Sydney. :( The flood comes gradually at first. All the animals ignore the obvious and go about their busy lives, disjointed from one another and preoccupied by their own problems. Eventually, the flood water reaches a height that they can no longer ignore and they have to work together to save their city.

I also found it a little stereotypical. It never crossed the line into what I would consider racism. I think it was more a case of shallow writing. Recommended for ages 10 to 13, this book falls into the category of "Surviving Environmental Catastrophes." Set in the near future, global warming has caused the Earth's sea levels to rise and flood the coastal nations around the world. Zoe's family is last to leave their flooded town in England, and she is sadly separated from her parents as they get on the last boats. She is fortunate to uncover a small rowboat submerged in the mud, and fixes it up so she can escape her town and find her parents. Zoe faces many challenges on her journey, particularly when stopping at a small "island" of an old cathedral that is overrun with wild children competing for space and resources. For a fan of end-of-the-world stories, what's not to like about this book? It posits a world where massive oceans underneath the Earth's mantle have broken through and are slowly flooding the world as we know it. Over the course of four decades, the sea level rises to eventually drown Mt. Everest. The struggle to deal with this slow motion catastrophe is ripe for any number of plots. So, what's not to like? Plenty. It begins in 2016. Another wet summer, another year of storm surges and high tides. But this time the Thames Barrier is breached and central London is swamped. The waters recede, life goes on, the economy begins to recover, people watch the news reports of other floods around the world. And then the waters rise again. And again.

Big Book of Amazing Animals

Though this book had a lot of good nuggets, the general idea, and the main themes were great, I just felt like there was something missing. I felt that it was choppy, that it needed smoother transitions. There were a few stories in there that were interesting in and of themselves but I didn't quite see how they fit into the point she was making. I have to say I finished this book wondering what the message was? If it was to make people aware of the dangers of global warming it didn't touch on what had actually happened to bring about this world with any clarity. If it was that tragedy brings out the worst in humans then it did a good job but it didn't go deep enough.