Winner, 2nd Place, Fiction, 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Winner, 1st Place, Regional Fiction, 2010 Next Generation Indie
Book Awards
Shaken Allegiances spans 48 hours in a world askew-almost
absurd-just after a devastating earthquake has struck and isolated
Montreal Island in the dead of an icy winter, one week before a
referendum on Quebec's secession from Canada. No power, no
communications, no access, and -40 F, but no heroes to the rescue;
no Schwarzenegger, no Stallone, no Charlton Heston. Provincial and
federal politicians are busy waging an ideological war, while
coordination of emergency response is in the hands of a lunatic; a
structural engineer and a disc jockey form an odd couple in their
pursuit of fame, while the frustrated media seek ways of
leapfrogging the collapsed bridges to undertake some disaster
tourism of their own. Their fortuitous encounters, and problems
with quirky opportunists, converge to help make things worse. Kafka
would feel at home.
Shaken Allegiances jolts with a disturbing and witty projection
of today's unbridled narcissistic society, a disaster in full bloom
that has sprung from the seeds of individualism planted in the
1980s. Its colorful characters, quixotic, ambitious, rapacious,
self-righteous, naive, conceited, moronic, lost, or otherwise
flawed, provide a fresh, entertaining and cynical view of the
inescapable human folly.
About Michel Bruneau
Michel Bruneau's blend of deadpan humor and keen eye for the
nonsensical side of human nature underlie his original perspective
on contemporary existence. His previous book of fiction,
"Inhumanite - Onze nouvelles qui insultent l'intelligence" (in
French) has received excellent reviews, particularly from Radio
Canada. In the technical realm, he has been an earthquake engineer
for over 20 years, doing his share to reduce the risks of
infrastructure collapse. As a professor and researcher, he has
extensively published and has received many awards for his work.
Born in Quebec City, expatriated by the demands of work, he lives
in Buffalo, enjoying its comparatively balmy winters.
www.MichelBruneau.com
Reviews
Seeing how the civil and political authorities behave, we are
forced to conclude that the earthquake, after all, is a lesser
evil. ( ) They all work toward their own personal agenda. ( )
Nobody is spared. The characters sometimes resemble, to a fault,
those we find in our own different parliaments. A warning to your
readers ( ) to let them know from the outset that they will
encounter things that may slightly unsettle them.
Line Boily, Radio Canada
"An earthquake cuts off Montreal Island from the world, and a
whole circus of Canadian politics, media, and so much more erupt
around it. A cynical and humorous look at the Quebec issue and
modern Canada, "Shaken Allegiances" is uniquely Canadian and
deserves a place in world fiction collections."
Midwest Book Review
Michel Bruneau has set the standard for combining excitement
with factual content in the earthquake fiction genre. (...) This is
not a novel in which to find role models. (...) Recommended to
earthquake engineering experts as well as to the general
public.
Robert Reitherman, Executive Director, Consortium of Universities
for Research in Earthquake Engineering, EERI Spectra
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