The Book of Koli

Carey (The Girl With All the Gifts) allows the promising premise of the first installment to his sci-fi Rampart Trilogy —a postapocalyptic U.K. (stylized in this far-future as “Yewkay”) in which human civilization has fallen to murderous, genetically modified plants—to languish as he focuses on a shallow, self-centered protagonist. Teenage Koli Woodsmith wants nothing more than to become a protector of his village. Though Koli sees himself as a hero, he is more swayed by his own desires than by challenging the systems put in place by the power-hungry village elders, and he acts primarily for his own gains, whether the motivation be a girl or a piece of technology. After Koli is accused of stealing from the town’s technological storeroom, he is exiled from the village and must learn to survive the hostile wilderness. The slogging plot is slowed even further by the narrator’s awkwardly rendered dialect (“I opened my mouth but no word come out. Of course I knowed it.”) . From the barely explored setting to the strained ventriloquism of the narrative voice, Carey offers little to inspire confidence in future series entries. Sci-fi readers will be disappointed. Agent: Meg Davis, Ki Agency. (Apr.)