Oculum Echo

Oculum Echo is the title of a middle grade novel set on a future Earth that has been severely damaged by plague and environmental collapse, and it is a sequel to Oculum. The story is told through the points of view of several characters, with one of the main characters being Miranda1, a 13 or 14-year-old girl. Freed from living inside an enclosed environment, she is now one of the leaders of a blended group that includes children from inside the Oculum dome and the survivors of civilization’s collapse. Mannfred is one of the boys from the outside that Mirandal meets. He and his friend Cranker are among those struggling to survive in a world that may be dying. People there are poor and simply trying to exist among the ruins. The other important character is ECHO1, a giant robot tasked by its makers, the original builders of the domes that were created to save what remained of mankind, to search to see if any of the other domes have survived.

Readers follow Echo1 in his search for more domes, and Mannfred and Cranker, accompanied by one of the Oculus boys, try to spy on and hopefully delay the UnRuly, a mob of survivors searching for sanctuary who don’t care whom they hurt or kill to survive. Miranda1 leads the survivors as they flee ahead of the UnRuly and their bombs and try to reach safety in the almost-mythical MedFell Hall. Pitted against them are not just the UnRuly and hungry feral beasts running wild, but also the foul weather that carries the deadly plague.

Oculum Echo’s contents are broken into chapters, each titled by the name of the character telling their part of this story. A very well-written and an imaginative description of a future world struggling to survive, the story ends on a positive note and a hint, at least to this reader, there could be more to come. This timely book should appeal to both boys and girls in search of adventure.