Kingdom Read-along Discussion Questions Week 1 from Anderson O’Donnell

KINGDOM is set in the very near future. Does the world O’Donnell describes seem plausible?

Yes. In many parts of the US has a bright facade painted over a decaying middle. I remember the first time I realized this was taking a train trip from Boston to El Paso. Pulling into Chicago you’d think we were entering a burnt out war zone. The buildings looked in that bad of shape. Also driving around the country as an OTR driver I saw the back roads and shanty towns. There is definitely two sides to America and O’Donnell has described that well. I live in the desert southwest so sometimes I want to throw in adjectives of my own as I’m reading those parts. hehe

Is Campbell a sympathetic character? Why (or why not)?

At first you know he’s done something wrong and is running away from it so not really. As the story goes on and you find the Order helping him he becomes more sympathetic. He starts making a stand and that’s when you start to see his character in a new light. Time will tell if he changes more.

The sex scene was pretty intense. Did it work for you?

You know if I was a guy and had a no holds barred birthday I would want to go all out so yeah it fit the scene and the setting and the characters involved.

Dystopian fiction is “hot” right now. Why?

Good question. When has it gone out of style or not been ‘hot’? I didn’t realize I liked it that much but yeah, I watch and have read quite a few without ever realizing it. The one I really like is Aeon Flux (the movie) because it ran counter to the dark, grimy, grunge look that populates most Dystopian. Instead it was a very bright, sophisticated world. Yet flawed and deadly. I think every generation as it’s gotten older has looked forward with dread and that the future will be worse off then we are now. Plus, it brings up our age-old instinct for survival and how far you are willing to go.

“The Order” is described as a collection of renegade scientist-monks in search of the human soul. What are your thoughts on the possibility that, specifics aside, human beings have some sort of “soul”? Keep this question in mind, and, at the end of the read-along, see if your answer has changed.

This will be interesting to see how this aspect develops. I have a keen interest in ghosts and spirits because all that energy stored up in the human body and we do generate it has to go somewhere. Nature abhors a vacuum. Nothing is every truly destroyed just transformed and I think that is what keeps me believing in some sort of ‘soul’ or ‘afterlife’.

Feel free to add to the discussion in comments here or at The Indie Exchange.

Tune in next week at tweedling.com for Week 2 of the Kingdom Read-along Discussion Questions.