(Gary Friedman’s cover for the 1978 edition)
3.25/5 (Vaguely Good)
“One of the women wasn’t dead yet. Her ravaged body hung naked from a broken billboard. Her legs were splayed wide and anchored with ropes; legs and belly were bloody, there were heavy bruises on her face and breasts, and she had been branded with a large “M” for mutant” (1).
Before there was Mad Max (1979) dir. George Miller there was Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s False Dawn (1978)… In 1972 she published her brutal and terrifying short story “False Dawn” in Thomas N. Scortia’s anthology Strange Bedfellows (1972). A few years later the work was deemed important enough to be included in Pamela Sargent’s famous anthology Women of Wonder (1975). This story forms the first chapter of her post-apocalyptical novel False Dawn (1978).
In the 60s highly inventive post-apocalyptical stories flourished: for example, J. G. Ballard’s masterpiece The Drowned World (1962) filled with images of uterine spaces and encroaching waters, Brian Aldiss’ Greybeard (1964) where the elderly are the inheritors of the earth, and D. G. Compton’s The Silent Multitude (1966) where conversations drift amongst the decaying cityscapes.
Yarbro pursues a somewhat different tack in False Dawn. She seeks to tell an unflinchingly realistic portrayal of a world gone to hell due to environmental devastation. I suspect this novel and John Brunner’s masterpiece The Sheep Look Up (1972) were influential for later SF.
This is not a cozy apocalypse. This is a world where deranged individuals both male and female who have managed to survive prey on travelers, where roving bands of Pirates loot, rape, and destroy under some tenuous ideology of “survival.” A world where most births produce deformed children, the wandering diseased transmit horrific illnesses, and religious fanaticism of the most virulent sort abounds… A few enclaves manage to eek out a semblance of civilized (rural) existence in the face of these threats. And the promise of more pristine environments that must exist over the next range of mountains, motivate some to keep searching for a better life.
Before society completely collapse groups of scientists experimented on humans in an effort to create bodies that would survive the ravishes of the environmentally destroyed landscape: “they had decided to adapt. They adapted their children. Viral modification, they called it, when it worked” (71). Our heroine, Thea is one of these designed “mutants” although her mutation does not play a major role in the novel.
Unfortunately this hyper-realistic recasting is not entirely successful despite its admirable intentions. Recommended only for fans of 70s post-apocalyptical SF.
Brief Plot Summary (*some spoilers*)
False Dawn‘s central protagonist, a “mutant” woman named Thea, is remarkably resilient. The novel stars off with her winding her way through a scene of incredible destruction caused in part by the Pirates: dead bodies, a raped woman splayed on a billboard, packs of wild dogs, dead animals whose decayed bodies show the signs of viral infections. Her objective: Gold Lake, where civilization might still exist. Her trek takes her across Northern California: a vast expanses of mutilated landscapes, dying peoples, and horrific surprises.
However, her solo journey ends when she encounters Evan Montague, the ex-leader of the Pirates. Evan is dying, his men, increasingly radicalized, turned on him and cut off his arm. The Pirates will stop at nothing to kill their ex-leader. Thea, against her gut feeling and desire to remain alone on her journey, joins up with him on her quest.
A third character “joins” Thea and Evan, an unstable man named Lastly who fought for the C. D. militia. Thea and Evan are disarmed by Lastly at rifle point and forced to march with him. Lastly lusts after Thea and rapes her as Evan collects fuel for their fire: no punches are pulled, the scene is devastating. Evan returns and kills Lastly.
As their journey becomes increasingly difficult for a one-armed man, Yarbro strategically has his “mutant” modifications manifest themselves: “Evan’s arm grew back as fall came on. It sprouted slowly as they left the contamination behind them, beginning as a tawny spatulate paddle below the angry cicatrix marking the path of the saw […]” (38). The majority of the story’s plot concerns the daily survival of the pair—investigating abandoned houses, building crossbows, avoiding the Pirates—as they make their way across snowy mountains towards Gold Lake.
The more thematic arc of the novel novel follows Thea’s slow recovery from the mental trauma she experienced. I found Yarbro’s treatment of the Thea’s extreme difficulty of recovery from such an experience is admirably conveyed and believable. As she recovers, Evan rekindles her memories of the past—they often reminisce about food, remember fragments of music. Also, she slowly begins to overcome the more general trauma generated by the virtual destruction of the world.
The end is bittersweet.
Final Thoughts
False Dawn attempts to be a realistic story with an exciting plot and careful character development. I remained unconvinced by some elements of the second point. As soon as Thea meets Evan Montague, the ex-leader of the Pirates, the novel tends to slip into very common gender dynamics (he is much older than her and falls in loves, he kills her rapist, he awakens her earlier memories of music and culture, etc). Evan is also completely unconvincing. How can a man who once lead the Pirates–i.e. a force of incredible destruction—suddenly transform into a caring, loving, and tender individual? Yes, he attempted to stem the tide of the Pirates’ increasing radicalism and was nearly killed for his actions…
The sweeping scenes of devastation are well-wrought and terrifying. The horror elements are predictable but effective. I prefer 60s/early 70s post-apocalyptical experimentation over hyper-violent realism.
Vaguely recommended for fans of post-apocalyptical SF.
For more book reviews consult the INDEX
(Jim Dietz’s cover for the 1979 edition)
(Melvyn Grant’s cover for the 1981 edition)
(Karel Thole’s cover for the 1979 Italian edition)
(R. S. Lonati’s cover for the 1980 German edition)
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 
You liked it more than I did!
http://www.amazon.com/review/RC6V9SMF1LHNN/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1930235100
I realized that my review made it out to be better than I thought it was…. I was very ambivalent. But did care for Thea — although I found Evan ridiculous (or rather, his character’s turn around).
Wow, that Italian cover pulls no punches!
Sounds like this may have worked better as a short story, which is the only one I’ve read. I thought the attempt at creating a somewhat realistic brutal world in the short story went beyond almost anything in the sub-genre before then. Another Mad Max precursor is Jane Gallion’s mediocre post-apocalyptic erotica “Biker” (1969) – I wonder if Yarbro was familiar with it.
A story featuring the perspective of a woman struggling with the consequences of rape seems unusual for SF. Are there any other examples out there?
Karel Thole’s cover is the first chapter of the novel in a nutshell (i.e. her previously published short story).
I might have stretched the comparison slightly too far… The Pirates have cars + guns and drive around pillaging. But it doesn’t have Mad Max costumes + camp aesthetic.
Yes, there are a few more out there — Kate Wilhelm’s Juniper Time (1979) comes to mind. Wrote a review a while back….
Right, I remember you reviewed that one. Juniper Time’s another one sitting unread on my shelf…
It was a good read. Although not the best she’s produced….
Somehow I missed that Yarbro wrote a post-apocalypse novel.
I wonder if that explains the dedication of Streiber and Kunetka’s War Day to her. (If I remember right.) It’s a post-limited nuclear war book.
Could be friendship among writers though since Yarbro also shows up as a character in that.
She’s written more than one — her first novel Time of the Fourth Horseman (1976) is somewhat post-apocalyptical as well. I plan on acquiring a copy soon (I have not read it).
I almost bought this last year, but decided against it because it looked so violent.
Violent is definitely an understatement… Although, most of the violence is contained in the beginning.
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Joachim, Thanks for the review, I’m going to reread this. It is one of those formative books for me–I read it when I was, I think, 12, and the rape scene really startled me. It was the first such scene I’d ever read, and to this day I recall certain scary details. One reason I appreciate SF is that even as I approach 50 and don’t read much current SF I know it is a valuable way for kids and adults alike to come at certain subjects from unusual angles.
I am not convinced it is a great book. It has gender politic issues that are unsettling. The ending is sufficiently bittersweet at least.
Joachim, I have it at home and will be rereading it, thanks to your review. I find books with unsettling/questionable politics, gender or otherwise, the most mentally stimulating, the most dangerous, and in these times that’s the raw stuff I value. Not to mention that if I only read stuff that agreed with my politics, I wouldn’t read. 😀 Thanks for the review, very thought-provoking.
But that isn’t what made it frustrating! Rather the blah banal level of the plot/characterizations. Some radical nature of the gender dynamics is the last thing to scare me away…
I wasn’t trying to accuse you of being frightened by that stuff, merely saying *I* like that stuff. (Too.) At this late date, when I find a book from that period–in this case, one I read and found new and different–with interesting ideas in terribly dated and/or flat writing, I end up tossing the book aside. Which was what ended up happening here. After the early scenes involving violence and rape and the two leads meeting, the book really fell to the Sword of My Reading Maturity. I stopped reading after awhile. It happens to all of us, eventually, but it was kind of funny to me that that one early sequence was ALL I recalled from the first reading of the book.