Like The Syndic, I picked this up (thrift store, I think) hoping for dumb trash, a nice Mad Max ripoff, as I'd seen a bunch of those around second hand shops (endworld, deathlands, etc). What I got instead was a brutal, uncompromising, empathic, and thoughtful piece of eco-fiction that grappled fearlessly with sexual violence and the fallout of trauma. I've since learned that I love spec fic by 70s & 80s lesbians, due to an evocative deployment of romance novel techniques (often bordering on slashfic) in violent SFF frameworks. This one flashes some trash fiction ultra-violence early, then pivots to a slow-burn character study, and a very grounded survival story. The ambiguous non-ending and denial of catharsis was a quality I would later come to love in the work of Yarbro's contemporary, CJ Cherryh. False Dawn is pretty underrated, like Yarbro is generally. This book is an all-timer imo. Walking Dead eat your heart out.
