The Paradise Generation Sanna Thompson

 

The Paradise Generation (2024)
Sanna Thompson, The Paradise Generation
umop apisdn Press [Upsidedown Press] Wellington
346pp, Pb, ISBN 978 1 067037 30 7

 

                                   

‘Weren’t we glad we were the Paradise Generation, and didn’t have to live through wars or plagues or internet disintegration or rapid sea rise like the generations before us …’

The narrator, Kieran Xu (16), is a member of the Paradise Generation but he dozes through his teacher’s reminder because he is exhausted. At night he slips out to visit his comatose cousin Lucas (20) in Wellington Hospital.

‘He hasn’t spoken in four years.’

 

As this superb sf novel begins, a terrifying emergency breaks out in the hospital. Kieran is alarmed because he realises that a Gen-en (genetically engineered human) has escaped and is rampaging through the ward. Kieran’s swift response ensures that he and Lucas survive unharmed. Kieran’s parents, learning of his midnight outings, ground him so he tries to prepare for his exams, but he is also intrigued by a fellow student, Mira Sorenssen, who returns his interest.

 

Kieran’s explanation of the Gen-en is typically laconic, ‘Eighty years ago they were everywhere, but then they decided Earth would be better off without humans and tried to wipe us out. Cue the Great Plague.’ Kieran’s narration drops subtle hints about the conflicts of the past. ‘Gen-ens were the reason Mum never met her grandparents.’

The reader also gains hints of the sort of government set in place to ensure there is a future for Earth’s surviving humans – a mere 72 million. People have coded identity chips in their wrists.  A world genome database enables the Match – a check on the gene pool – for couples. Kieran and Mira fail the Match test. ‘… we have to keep the gene pool moving … If you disagree with your result, well, the re-education workcamps will sort you out …’ Kieran concentrates on Lucas’s grim position. In a few weeks a medical review will decide ‘if he is worth all these resources … You got Allocated four years to recover and prove your contribution to society. After that …’

 

So, what happened to Lucas four years earlier, when Kieran was twelve? Several brief chapters, titled Four Years Ago, are interspersed through the early part of the novel enabling the reader to understand Kieran’s determination to save Lucas. They also include tantalising hints of deeper issues involving Lucas’s technology skills.

Mira plays an important part in the dramatic events which follow and - avoiding spoilers – her interest in law and history proves vital in the exciting events that follow. Kieran’s opportunity comes when he has a student internship at the powerful Genetics Authority and is shoulder-tapped by Edmund Doncaster (112), the man whose cure had stopped the Great Plague. Keiran calls him ‘the closest New Zealand had to a national god.’ Why is Doncaster so interested in Kieran and his Category A genome? What does this mean for Kieran and Mira? And the rest of the Paradise Generation?

What follows is a lively science fiction story, packed with surprises and full of convincing characters interacting in a brilliantly constructed world of the future.

 There is a useful and intriguing map of Pōneke Wellington, which shows the location of the various suburbs mentioned in the story. It also shows such sinister future features as Sea Flood Zones, Consolidation Lines and, beyond them, The Wilds.

 Awards: 

2025: Storylines Tessa Duder Award: Shortlisted

2025: Best Young Adult Novel Award: Winner

 

Trevor Agnew 

23 Sep 2025 [Review 3796]