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Summary: Could this really happen?
Review: "Overshoot" is a novel about global warming and other unexpected results of modern society.What is ahead of us in the 21st Century? This novel gives us one possible scenario. Eighty-year-old Moira Burke shares her experiences, past & present, and her actions as a result of thes experiences. The good thing about this book is that it's easy to follow even though you jump back and forth between the 20th and 21st centuries. A diary-style storyline improves the readability greatly. What's interesting too is the fact that much of the 20th century part of the book is based on real hapennings of the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's of our current century. Now that I have aroused your curiousity, get the book, think about the happenings and guess about how it comes out in the long run. "Overshoot" is an enjoyable read but it's not a "can't put it down" type of book.
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Summary: Compelling
Review: ... I can't help but agree with the criticisms of this book mentioned by other reviewers here on Amazon, but, ultimately, that doesn't affect my opinion of it one bit. The book's recent history may be a few years out of date, but the core message, that we're fouling our nest and we've got to do something about it, is more compelling than ever, five years (and a brain dead President who just doesn't seem to get the environmental thing) later. As one other reviewer said, one of the most compelling things is the utterly pedestrian nature of most of the travails that befall the aging characters as they struggle to eek out the barest existence possible. Not with a bang, but with a whimper, does the American lifestyle of mass consumption expire. This is not the old age I wish for myself. How many of us have our own personal, physical or mental <> files?!? Ironically, almost all the incidents she cites in her book, I already knew about... How many of us, right here, right now, are thinking, "goddamn, when is the human race going to collectively wake up and get a clue? what is it going take to compell us to act?" This book makes me want to sell everything I own and dedicate the rest of my life to saving the planet. The only thing that disappoints me about this book is the duex ex machina of this all being related to a collective genetic flaw that can be cured by a tailored retrovirus... in the real world, thing simply are not going to be that simple, and if our last best hope is an altruism plague, thing seem pretty bleak indeed. Ultimately, we have a much harder roe to how: we've got to first be our own change, then convince the people around us to change as well. I can see the first, gratingly halting staggering steps towards that being made... read the environmental manifesto of the ever so mainstream Liberal-Democratic Party in England... read what the mainstream dialogue there (and in New Zealand) is over the environment - it is like we live on a different planet here in the states, the basic assumptions about what our goals should be, and how we should live, are so different; but, not so long ago, they must have been fairly similar, so there is obviously reason for hope!
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Summary: Ecological, insightful and fun
Review: A must read! I'm sick of people talking about El Nino when it's really global warming. I think Mona is right on. Very entertaining book.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful, serious yet very entertaining!
Review: As far as I know, this is the only sf book currently in print which envisions what will happen to people alive today if global warming turns out to be the problem so many scientists fear it will be. While the more serious moments make the bookt believeable, the ending gives us hope. The characters are three-dimensional, and I loved the animals!
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Summary: Read David Brin's "Earth" instead.
Review: Bleh. I finished the book, but only because I wanted to find out about the Green Man. The book is pedantic and preachy. I didn't like the narrator, Moira, who seems 40, not 80, and who acts really dense a lot of the time so that some other character has an excuse to give a little environmental or spiritual discourse. And all her juvenile slang got on my nerves after a while. If you want a good book on collapsing civilization, with spiritual themes and with a much smarter and more interesting female narrator, try Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" (occasionally preachy too, but not even close to "Overshoot"). Or read David Brin's "Earth," another good book on near-future North America, with strong environmental themes and with all sorts of other neat speculation also.
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Summary: Very entertaining and thought-provoking!
Review: I couldn't put this book down. Clee's future world is very believable. Her use of comtemporary political and social events as well as those in recent history really pull the reader into the story. Her main characters experienced what we experience today. This brings the characters close to our lives and makes it seem we could experience what they experience in the future. I found the future technology very believable, especially the genetic technology.
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Summary: Growing old in post-apocalyptic Berkeley
Review: I like books about communities making it through catastrophic times and I really enjoyed this one. Overshoot tells the story of a group of senior citizens in the Berkeley hills trying to survive after global warming is about to bring the world to an end. How will we be saved? Clee gets her descriptions of Berkeley exactly right as she intersperses her characters' actions in 2032 with flashbacks from one woman's life, relating her encounters with ideas about mythology and (pagan) religion, environmental warnings, and a wealth of historical events covering several decades. Hard sci fi fans might not appreciate the references to synchronicity and Gaia beliefs in Overshoot, but I felt Clee skillfully weaves together aspects of culture and mysticism while still keeping her empirical feet (mostly) on the ground. She has a good ear for communal life, recognizing the importance of group actions. What she does with the birds is a nice touch too. I thought Clee's only misstep was in having her main character make a few odd choices when she was younger (who didn't?), but this is a small quibble about a book that brings a lot of pleasure.
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Summary: an amazing book!
Review: I picked this book up because some of it is set in my town, but I keep re-reading it because of the ideas she so intelligently expresses. This book is a warning about what could happen if we don't pay attention to the environment (are you listening, Exxon/Mobil? ). It is also a hopeful view about humans moving toward healing each other & the environment by rediscovering spirituality; yet Clee doesn't condemm technology. Technology, wisely used, is part of the solution. I've heard that Ms Clee is working on 2 books -- I can't wait till they come out!
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Summary: Social Science Fiction at Its Best
Review: I read Overshoot after hearing about the author's first book, Branch Point. While Branch Point is very entertaining - a romp through recent history - Overshoot is a deeper, more serious, ambitious book. Take a group of people who are now in their 30s and 40s, and move them ahead in time to the year 2032, take the concerns and fears about global warming that are in the headlines now, put them together, and you have an angry, moving, wonderfully written book that showcases what social science fiction is supposed to be about. This is a future that people alive today may live to see. Yet, unlike so many "Apocalypse" books, Overshoot is not a downer. The characters suffer through some very disturbing rough times, but the ending is upbeat and hopeful, not sugar-coated or airy-fairy, and is plausible in the light of current advances in gene therapy and gene manipulation. And it isn't justone more example of an end-of-the-world novel where at the last minute the writer pulls a rabbit out of a hat and magically makes everything okay. This is a big book with big issues, not your usual escapist stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely unacceptable.
Review: I would have thrown up on this book, except that I got it from the library.
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