Poor Prose Muddles the Urgent Questions Posed in The History of Bees

The novel is at its best when describing the particularities of Maja Lunde’s The History of Bees is the first of the Oslo-based beekeeping and the history of bee science. [...] I found myself fascinated by the specific, almost dystopian hierarchy of a These interwoven plots are compelling, and to the best of bee colony, and by the miracles of enzymatic chemistry by which my knowledge, the scientific parts are accurate. [...] However, the bees turn the sucrose of nectar into the concentrated glucose and complexities of the issues – of pesticides and monocrops and the fructose of honey. [...] Nonetheless, the quality of the book is often diminished by the one- Ian (he/him) is a chemist and writer dimensional characters and the quality of the prose on a sentence- originally from Truro, now living in Halifax. [...] George observes: Speculative fiction on the topic of environmental destruction is a powerful corollary to the dry language often used in science and “We were like Martians in white suits with hats and policy; a good piece of fiction can access a broader range of ideas veils, in and out of the beams of light from the than a position paper.