#year of the locust

[kyndaris]

Plot? What Plot?

As someone who aspires to become an author that will someday get on a Best Selling List somewhere in the world, I read a lot of books. While it's not on the level of professional BookTok-ers or those running BookTube channels, I like to think I get through a decent portion of them during the year. Especially when my books of choice are usually 600-page minimum behemoths. AFter all, with the rising cost of books (they're about $24 now in Australia for a standard paperback), I need to ensure I'm getting my money's worth!

However, ever since I joined the bookclub at my workplace, I've been exposed to genres and books I might not have usually thought twice on. Surprisingly, most of them have been much shorter than the books I usually devour.

But the most recent book we've picked is Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes. And, quite frankly, I've mixed feelings about the book. Spoilers ahead for anyone who might want to read this book in the future.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to spy thrillers. Hell, back in 2013, I even bought I Am Pilgrim after seeing the title being advertised nearly everywhere in the London Underground while I was there third-wheeling my friend and her then-boyfriend's relationship (you know you're close if you can get away with hijacking a trip overseas to see a significant other).

Did I love it? Not...exactly.

Still, I gave it a reasonable 3 out of 5 stars!

Year of the Locust, on the other hand, is a rough 2.5 stars (rounded down on Goodreads in this instance).

And I know you must be asking me why. After all, it's a 600-page behemoth. So, it would be in my usual wheelhouse of books I'd like to savour in just shy of a month.

Unfortunately, while I find the writing and sentence structure decent, my main issue are the characters and the surfeit of plot. This is no A Court of Silver Flames where Nesta and Cassian spin plates in the House of the Wind (and by that I mean the training, the bloody 10,000 step staircase and all the unnecessary sexy times), and the plot, when it is remembered, is scattered unevenly throughout before it all gets rushed through in the last few chapters.

No, no. Year of the Locust suffers from what I like to call the Scarlet Nexus issue. It's where the writers (or writer in this case), think any and all ideas are great and insert it into the story as some sort of twist. And in Year of the Locust, the second half has this in spades: space spores which fast-track human into evolving a white carapace, giving them a 'ridgeback,' and heightening their aggression; an experimental cloaking technology affixed to a submarine that somehow makes it travel through time.

Like, why? Why couldn't this be a separate story entirely?

Also, did you have to power up your villain into some video game bullet sponge? Uncharted 2: Honour Among Thieves this is not. But if you blink, the difference between Zoran Lazarevic and Kazinsky are almost non-existent.

Perhaps my gut instinct at the start of the book should have warned me that Year of the Locust would not go the way I thought it would. Especially as it opened with a completely different adventure with Ridley Kane going up against the Magus (which would later be revisited again in Part 3 - most likely to pad the book out because it added little substance to the whole Ridley and Kazinsky dynamic in any shape or form) to highlight a secret technique the dastardly spy would use against our protagonist, one he would repeat in the final few chapters against Kazinsky.

Another thing that rubbed me wrong was how often Ridley, as he recounts the story sometime in the future, would tell the reader how deadly all his foes were. All the while underselling his abilities as a Denied Access Area spy. Rather, our protagonist is just an ordinary guy who once wished to be part of a submarine crew and has mastery of multiple languages like Russian and Arabic.

The other parts I felt added little to the actual plot were the foreshadowing dreams Ridley has, and which many of the supporting cast attribute to PTSD. Why can't intuition just be that? Did Ridley truly have to emphasise he could hear 'gunshots from the future?' It's not as if he was ever shown to be clairvoyant about other things in his life.

Oh, and don't get me started on how much of the book 'tells' the backstory of all of its characters rather than simply 'showing' it. Did we need to have several chapters dedicated to Kazinsky talking about his childhood of hunting for mammoth tusks? How did it add to his characterisation? Did Ridley really have to exclaim to the rest of the CIA that Kazinsky was expositing to hammer the exact same point home to the reader?

By the time I reached the end, I was praying for the story to end. Especially when typical tropes began being pulled out: like Ridley refusing to go back in time and only did so when his wife (when did he and Rebecca even get married again?) died in his arms. The writing truly could be seen on the wall.

Also, how did the spores manage to travel around the world? How much was on some asteroid ore? And if they could become airborne, why couldn't people get infected after Devil's Night?

All I can say after reading the book was that the author definitely needed an editor. One who wasn't afraid to tell the author to kill his darlings if he wanted to write something that might not have been a complete mess. Or, at the very least, split the plot in half and write them separately with different characters. There was absolutely no need to mush two disparate ideas into one book. Especially given how strange the tonal change would be.

Do I regret that I read this book? A little. There are a million other choices sitting on my bookshelves. And yet, I also think it's important to read books one might not always enjoy. After all, such things help widen one's understanding of taste. If you're lucky, though, you might just find a new genre you'd fall in love with. Or a new favourite author.

While I know some might argue there isn't enough time in our very short life spans to read books you don't like, it's hard to distinguish what you do and don't like without experimenting a little. If one reads only the classics, thinking they ought to like them because of how they've managed to stand the test of time, it may deter them from books entirely. Especially if the writing might be too pretentious or too dry.

Besides, what someone else might like but I might detest is all very subjective. There are many people online who have elevated Sarah J Maas to such heights I'd not be able to reach while leaving other authors, who might be just as good, in the dust.

In any case, I know for certain Year of the Locust isn't quite the novel I expected. While there are some reviewers on Goodreads who love the rollercoaster ride they were presented with, it is this humble blogger's opinion that the story would have been better split into two separate novels. Coupled with a good editor who wasn't afraid to leave certain threads on the cutting room floor, those two separate stories would have been more tightly written and given Terry Hayes the springboard to leap into a wholly different genre.

[daredevil-vagabond]

Poem: Cicada - Hosho McCreesh

Cicada Jason [The prequel?]

[los-plantalones]

frozen black locust trees.

[thisisdore]

24/11/24

Food and books, getting my wallpaper up, reading some more, chocolate cake, and the second Lilo and Stitch. Feeling a little scattered as I couldn’t do a lot of my usual Sunday tasks, but I’m telling myself it’s okay.

[pillarsalt]

the last post I wrote about dog communication was mostly about body language, but I'm doggysitting my little baby stepson again (he's a grown man ((neutered,)),) (this is punctuation hell I'm in hell,) and am reminded of how attentive they are to tonal language as well. After a while, saying "good boy! :)" and "beep boop! :)" in exactly the same tone has the same effect on the dog's attitude, same with "hey, no. >:(" and "din-gus. >:(". I love the fact that when I'm tired or only half paying attention to him, I can communicate in apelike grunts and he still gets what I mean (well mostly, he can only take so many minutes of minimal attention, you see.) In these moments I've abbreviated "that's a good boy" to "zzg'aboi".

Another thing in dog language is you can say "heh heh!" without actually using your vocal chords, like just panting twice quickly, and a lot of dogs will immediately get into play mode. I just did it in my kitchen and heard dog in the other room jump up and snatch his toy off the floor. So cuteee.

[hellsvestibule]

Bug pussy is camp of the highest caliber if you can’t handle that idk how youd ever survive on my blog. The locusts

[dykexenomorph]

DESPERATELY want to write character analysis for tht god forsaken marvel show but i dont even know where to start w it but its okay bc i can just finally act on the fic ideas i have for it instead but actually trying to write anything ever makes me feel like im slamming into a brick wall well thats fine ill just draw the comic ideas i have for it except for the fact tht ive been stuck in the worlds most heinous case of a months-long artblock. GOD. GOOD GOD.

[mudstoneabyss]

having Lauren not have been seen in db since tmua is kinda crazy. fuck has she been doing for five years

[humming-fly]

Trick or treat!!! 🤠💀👻👻👻

woe Corne be upon thee

[valveorangebox]

Your name is LOCUST ZAHHAK and your mentor is an INSUFFERABLE PRICK

[bytesizeambs]

Pharaoh Cicada | Cicadas | Locusts #shorts #cicada #locust #cutecritters #bytesizeambs #truebug

I've been so excited about posting this YouTube short. The Pharaoh Cicadas (17 Year Locusts) are out! It is so amazing to watch them molt and just be.

NOTE: Video quality is better when watched via YouTube. Info on Pharaoh Cicadas in the description of this YouTube short.

EDIT: Since YouTube has decided to keep deleting the description on this one video, I'm posting it below.

We were fortunate enough to see several Pharaoh Cicadas (17 Year Locusts) molting last week. It was amazing to see and I was able to get one on video for this short.

Pharaoh Cicada (Magicicada septendecim)

The majority of the life of Magicicada septendecim is spent in an underground or subterranean habitat. The area in which a periodical cicada brood is located must contain a large population of deciduous trees, on whose roots the cicadas feed during the underground nymph stages. The trees are also necesary for the molt into adulthood, choruses, and egg-laying (Boyer 1996). (iNaturalist)

Habitat Regions: temperate ; terrestrial

Terrestrial Biomes: forest

Other Habitat Features: suburban

Cicadas can provide several environmental benefits, including:

Food source for predators: Cicadas are a valuable food source for birds, reptiles, insects, and mammals

Soil improvement: Cicada tunnels aerate the soil, and their decomposition adds nutrients to the soil

Tree pruning: Cicadas prune mature trees, which can lead to increased flowering and fruit production in the following year

Water filtration: Cicadas improve water filtration into the ground

#shorts #cicadas #locusts #pharaohcicada #bytesizeambs #bytesizeambsshorts

[shion2nd]

i rly like this song. you should listen to it. in case you might like it too?

[hickeygender]

honestly being in some tall CRP grasses and brambles and brush would fix me <- a man who hasn't walked in the countryside in over a year

[kagender]

art about pet loss speaks to me more than anything else. idk

[thisisdore]

29/11/24

Spent the day in the den, doing some hobby stuff, catching up with my notebooks, having a 2025 notebook wobble, finished ‘The Year of The Locust’ which made me realise that publishers really will publish anything, and did some planning for the coming month.

[freetheworms]

Tell us more about locusts!!!

I DONT KNOW IF U KNEW WHAT U WERE SIGNING UP FOR BUT THANK U FOR ASKING!!!

they’re insane! they’re grasshoppers! or they were before they got too buddy buddy with the other grasshoppers while trying to eat food when it’s scarce as hell in the desert. very “you’re not you when you’re hungry,” except snickers never did an ad campaign on the dangers of locusts…

anyway. grasshoppers usually travel alone. the saying is “lone wolf” but really it should be “lone grasshopper,” okay? okay. but, when food is scarce, they’re forced to gather together in one spot to eat, getting so close to each other that they bump their little leggies together constantly. this sounds harmless right? a little cuddle never hurt anyone right?? wrong! in about 20 of the 7000 known grasshopper species, something about rubbing their little leggies together triggers what’s called a “gregarious phase,” which is a hilarious term to me but that’s not important. they get greggy. and WHEN they get greggy, they undergo a whole chemical transformation basically overnight!!

a greggy boi will transform magical girl style, from tan (best to blend into the desert when alone) to bright yellow and black (which might signal they’re toxic — interestingly enough, when they get greggy, they start to change their diet to ingest local toxic plants that they used to avoid) and actually become slightly smaller than their grasshopper counterparts. their legs and wings become stronger though, so they can fly super long distances with their buddies and. well. yknow, destroy vast fields of crops cause they looove carbs now! and unfortunately so do we, hence why a plague of locusts has been a major problem since the dawn of time :)

but wait! there’s more! i bet you’re wondering how these plagues of locusts get so big and only come around every so often, right? well. turns out that these species of grashopper lay their eggs in damp soil. so, when there’s a lot of rain in the african desert, there’s a lot of free real estate for these hoppers to make massive amounts of hopper babies! except, those hopper babies have to eat, and BOY CAN THEY EAT. so they’ll eat and eat all the new vegetation that came with those Rains Down In Africa that Toto was talking about, and then what? well, if there’s enough rain and enough vegetation like there was a few years ago, then there’s enough time for potentially more than one generation of grashopper to procreate before the vegetation finally can’t keep up with their appetites. each generation can grow exponentially by about 20 times the previous gen, and a generation cycle only takes 3 months! which means, many months later when they finally do have to gather together to eat the last vestiges of food? there’s JUST. SO. MANY OF THEM. just an insane number of grashoppers in one place, getting soooo greggy. and that leads to what you may call A FUCKING LOCUST STORM OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS COMING FOR YOUR GRAINS. BAD NEWS BEARS.

so anyway, africa has a locust patrol of dudes just out there in the desert, looking for signs that grasshoppers are about to get greggy and destroy everything AGAIN, so they can proactively poison them and save the crops, but. sometimes they slip by like they did in 2018 and things get real bad.

also, if you have a greggy breed of grasshopper, you CAN trigger their transformation yourself by rubbing their legs enough, which i find endlessly fascinating.

and um. yeah! i’m likely forgetting lots of stuff in there because i just woke up but. there you have my very brief rundown on locust basics