TITLE: The Bees
AUTHOR: Laline Paull
GENRE: Science Fiction/Dystopia/Fantasy
PUBLISHED: May 6, 2014
RATING: ★★★★★
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon.com
MOBILISM LINK: Mobilism
Description: The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death.
Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw but her courage and strength are an asset. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect pollen. She also finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.
But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all—daring to challenge the Queen's fertility—enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, her society—and lead her to unthinkable deeds.
Thrilling, suspenseful and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees gives us a dazzling young heroine and will change forever the way you look at the world outside your window.
Review: I waited impatiently for this book. I had read that all the characters in this book are actual bees - I was already sold! Then I read the blurb comparing the book to The Handmaid's Tale and The Hunger Games, and then I really could not wait to read it. Another review I read stated this book was "Watership Down with bees"; another compared it to Animal Farm. Wow, this book really had some buzz. (Ha!) Then, days before its release, I saw these quotes:
“[A] gripping Cinderella/Arthurian tale with lush Keatsian adjectives.” —Margaret Atwood
“THE BEES is one wild ride. A sensual, visceral mini-epic about timeless rituals and modern environmental disaster. Paull’s heart pounding novel wrenches us into a new world.” —Emma Donoghue
Oh wow. Margaret Atwood loves this book?!?, I thought. I grew faint at this exposure by proxy, silly with joy envisioning one of my favorite authors reading the same passages I enjoyed. I could not imagine a more ringing endorsement - the day it came out I bought it and read it immediately.
I believe this book's title could have been a little more clever, but the cover could not have been better. I have seen two versions of the cover, each equally enticing. And whoever wrote the description of the book did it very well. The comparisons to The Hunger Games are fitting: This novel's story is a dystopian society with complicated, extensive world-building in which characters compete to the death.
The comparison to The Handmaid's Tale is equally apt; the female bees are there to serve the drones sexually, the place is full of misogyny and clear caste systems; everyone is born into a role where they stay for life, with no chance to break away. But as I read the book, another book/TV series seemed a more fitting comparison. You see, male bees (drones) compete with each other in a manner reminiscent of Game of Thrones. (I suppose it would be called Game of Drones?) So, yes, there is bee sex, bee violence, bee betrayal, bee secrecy, bee birth, bee death - once you get sucked in, you won't be able to put the book down - while learning some factually accurate information about bees and their lives. And unlike most dystopian societies, this book doesn't merely change the world around us, or push us into the future, or expand the world to outside our planet; instead it contracts our present day world - and sets it mainly inside a beehive.
Motto of the hive:
"Accept, Obey, Serve."
Just one of thousands, Flora 717 may be the tiny and insignificant to everyone around her, but she is also one of the fully-realized characters I have ever met as well. From the start she is different: usually this means instant, heartless death for the good of the hive, but because a higher level bee takes a liking to her, she survives and thrives. This is believable because Flora 717 is one of the lowest castes - she is a sanitation bee; the quality that gives everyone pause is that she shouldn't be able to talk but she can. She is also larger and darker than everyone else. The higher-level bee allows her to live and becomes an ally of sorts, even her protector. In time, she gets to know other bees of status. One bee tells her:
“You have wings and courage and a brain. Do not annoy me by asking permission."
So, Flora 717 never again asks permission. And with this freedom granted, Flora 717 is able to move up in the hierarchy, an anomaly, but then again, this fact is what drives the plot of the book and what makes the storyline so compelling. This book discusses the idea of chance and fate, of faith, morality, even religion. I won't tell you too much more about the story as it would be hard to do so without spoilers. In the end, I loved the place both Flora 717 and her hive ended up at the conclusion of The Bees: it was realistic but with hope for the future of the hive. I can even see the possibility of a sequel in the future. Have I piqued your interest yet? You really can't go wrong with this book. I think it would appeal to anyone - from male traditional science fiction/dystopia fans all the way to female romance and chick lit readers; this novel has something for everyone.
My only quibble is author, Laline Paull, seems to have some confusion with re to bee behavior; it's too anthropomorphic. Bees are given too many human emotions and some of them are beyond my ability to suspend belief. I can believe bees like sex; I'm not sure they fall in love. Paull mostly treads the line of reality and fantasy very carefully; naturally for the book to work we need the bees to be able to communicate their thoughts, motivations and feelings with us, the reader. Yet, she goes too far sometimes: food is served on plates with cutlery (What?) and a cleaner bee is going around using brooms to clean (Huh?). This grating flaw made me drop the rating down to 4.5 stars, yet the sheer originality of the plot forced me to kick it back up again. You have never read another book like this one of a kind story. (At least for now!). 5 Stars.
