2.5 Stars
I wanted to enjoy this more than I did, but I think it felt disjointed and uncentered for a short story.
America has fallen. A dystopian vision of corporate fascism where the population is controlled and monitored, "reeducated" as required, and each citizen given their due portion of goods. The collective is paramount, marriage and nuclear family units outlawed. Imagine Stalin and the Chinese revolution, 1984 and V for Vendetta rolled in this version of socialist imprisonment. The glimpses of Atlantis and the commentary has beautiful language and the dissonance between the two realms are extreme and you wonder which is truly worse, but it felt like it didn't quite gel for me.
Remembering that this was originally written in 1975 it is a disturbing vision nonetheless.
"The Neo-Birch insurgents in Phoenix could not hold out much longer against the mass might of the American army and air force, since their underground supply of small tactical nukes from the Weathermen in Los Angeles had been cut off."
"In a way it was more like an ethereal snowfall than a sunrise. The light seemed to be in discrete particles, infinitesimal flecks, slowly descending, faint, fainter than flecks of fine snow on a dark night, and tinier; but blue."
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