The Last Oasis

With hardly any fertile land remaining on Earth and a nearly vanished ozone layer, Phoenix and Madonna, two teenaged friends, flee Portland with the hope of reaching the hydroponics labs in Idaho.

This debut novel takes place in a world blighted by massive environmental collapse, a world whose people are enslaved by the oppressive Government Store. In this bleak setting, Phoenix and Madonna narrowly escape arrest and exile to Denver or Japan, areas so devastated that they are uninhabitable. Together, the two teenagers make a desperate run for freedom by stowing away on a flotilla of cargo barges which they hope are heading to Idaho, the only place they know of where rain still falls and plants still grow. Along the way, both protagonists must grapple with heartbreaking conflicts between their personal honor and their pressing need to survive. Though readers will easily identify with this complex, fully realized twosome, many of the novel's secondary characters are less capably drawn and come across as somewhat flat. Nevertheless, Pace's harrowing, well-plotted SF yarn moves at breakneck speed. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a harsh vision of the near future, three children flee across a landscape devastated by war and toxic waste. Portland, huddled around a mall that's the only remaining source of safe water and shelter from the now-deadly sun, is one of the last remnants of civilization in the US--but rumor has it that farming of some sort is still going on in Idaho. Lured by that hope, Phoenix and Madonna evade police and stow away on a barge bound up the Snake River. On board they meet Brat, a mutilated feral child whose diet of garbage is slowly killing her. The three survive an attack by Shoshone tribesmen desperate to stop the pollution of their river and escape New Hanford, now a deathtrap due to leaking nuclear waste. Both major and minor characters are larger than life (Phoenix, a dreamer driven by the hope of peace; Madonna, surly, practical, given to wild behavior; Brat, a ruined beauty with an angelic singing voice); they move through a society marked by filth, insanity, and sexual innuendo. Almost as an afterthought, the author allows them to reach their Promised Land in the last four pages; though they aren't disappointed by their discovery, emotionally exhausted readers aren't going to find much relief. A nightmarish first novel. (Fiction. YA) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.