For Discussion

1. How do the Bone Rattler plotlines and characters build upon similarities between the Scottish and Iroquois cultures?

2. How does the woodland Indian culture presented in the novel affect the political dynamic underlying the plot of Bone Rattler?

3. Pattison has often noted that his books ultimately are about the nature of justice, which can mean different things to different people. Does Bone Rattler suggest that there is a "natural" form of justice that exists without laws and courts? Does the justice sought by the Scots differ from that sought by the Indians?

4. Most history books present 18th century America in terms of aristocrats and wealthy planters. Why does Pattison present this period through the eyes of exiles and outcasts? How might this relate to his statement that in Bone Rattler he seeks to bring to life the invisible people who really formed America?

5. In the second chapter, speaking of Duncan's duty to his lost Scottish clan, Lister states "There's the rub. Ye'll never have their world. But ye'll always have their name." How does this become a theme in the novel? In early America?

6. "The darkness there is like nothing I've ever seen," Lister warns of the western forest across the river from Edentown. "Worse than the blackest sea in the blackest storm. Ye can read the sea, but ye can't read that. There is no bottom to it, there is just black behind the black...There is no soul alive who's been from one side to the other...Go into it and the clan dies." How does Pattison use the American wilderness as another character in his novel?

7. In what ways might Sarah Ramsey be considered representative of an emerging "American" woman?

8. "When all the land's gone there will be only things in your world," the Iroquois shaman declares to Lord Ramsey as he tries to understand the English. "Will those things have life?" How do differing views of the earth and wilderness drive the English and the Indians in this novel?

9. The parallels between the plight of the Highland Scots and the plight of the American Indians resonate deeply with Duncan by the end of the novel. What parallels do you see beyond their unfair treatment by the British king?

10. What do you think Pattison means in his closing note that sometimes historical fiction can strike closer to the truth than history books?

1. Why has Pattison chosen an exiled Chinese as the main character, and the primary vehicle for explaining the very different world of Tibet? Why do you think he chose not to use a Tibetan as his main character?

2. After he is offered a chance to politically rehabilitate himself, "Shan stared at a dim, vaguely familiar ghost, his reflection in the window. It was happening. He was being reincarnated into a lower lifeform." What does this passage reveal about Shan's personality and the way Tibet has transformed his life?

3. As Shan descends into the skull cave shrine in Chapter Eight he undergoes a deep emotional reaction. "They weren't in the heart of the mountain," Pattison writes. "They were in the heart of the universe, and the numbing silence that welled around them wasn't a silence at all, but a soul wrenching hoarseness like the moment before a scream." How do the physical settings of this book help to heighten its drama?

4. How do The Skull Mantra's plotlines draw on differences between Chinese, Tibetan, and American cultures? Do those differences explain why each of the central characters approaches the underlying murder in a different way?

5. The lama Choje warns Shan about harboring too much hope. "It still consumes you," the lama says, "It makes you wrongly believe that you can strike against the world. It distracts you from what is important." What does Shan mean when he replies "I do not have the strength not to hope"?

6. Pattison provides several perspectives on Colonel Tan, the military commander. After reading the book, how do you see him? As a tyrant? A forgotten, bitter bureaucrat? A symbol of a heartless, intolerant government? A victim of the very persecutions he has carried out? How do Colonel Tan, Sergeant Feng, and Dr. Sung reflect what oppression can do to the oppressors?

7. Pattison has often noted that his books explore the relative nature of justice, that justice, like beauty, can be in the eye of the beholder. How does The Skull Mantra highlight how justice means different things to different people?

8. Yeshe serves as a symbol of the dilemma of the modern Tibetan, trying to live in two worlds. What is the real source of Yeshe's anguish at the end? Is it because he has by his own actions cut himself from any future life with the monks? Is it because he has let down Shan? Is it because he has lost all sense of his own identity?

9. Pattison's books evoke widely different reactions to their endings. How did you feel when finishing The Skull Mantra? Uplifted? Depressed? Angry? Despondent? Satisfied that justice has been done?

10. How do you think Tibetans react to this book? Chinese citizens? Chinese officials?

Hadrian begins a desperate journey through the underbelly of the colony and into the wretched camps of the outcasts, escorted by Jori Waller, a young policewoman who struggles to cope with the physical and emotional remnants of a world she never knew. Ultimately Hadrian's journey becomes one of self-discovery, and to find justice his greatest challenge is navigating the tortuous path of the human spirit in a world that has been forever shattered.

Pattison's post-apocalyptic world is populated with battered survivors who murmur fifty-year old rock songs like mantras, criminals who use secrets of the old world to subvert the new, priests who fear God has given up on humankind, and a new generation whose view of history is driven by myth and fear. Ashes of the Earth offers a journey through a alternate world that poignantly explores the meaning of justice, morality, and ultimately civilization itself.

Questions for Discussion

1. Most post-apocalyptic novels are set in the bleak near-term aftermath of destruction. Why do you think Pattison chose to set Ashes of the Earth a generation after the apocalypse?

2. Why do you think Pattison never speaks in his book of the specific causes of the apocalypse?

3. The colony of Carthage struggles to construct a new world on the ashes of the old. While it has knowledge of 21st century science, the only tools and technology available to it are of the early industrial age. How do you think science and technology would evolve under such circumstances? How did Pattison's selection of the Great Lakes setting for Carthage affect its technology and economy?

4. If, as in Carthage colony, all literature and history of recent decades is forbidden, how will culture and learning evolve? When, as in Carthage, religion is intertwined with the works of Shakespeare, what do you think the outcome would be? How do the vestiges of culture salvaged from multiple centuries affect life in Carthage?

5. The murdered Jonah Beck was driven in his final months by the poet Dylan Thomas' injunction to "rage against the dying of the light." When she encounters the ruined lands for the first time in a generation, Nelly states that "I'm not sure any more if we are the spark of civilization. Maybe we are just the dying ember." Might the poet's words have different meanings for different characters in Ashes of the Earth?

6. Pattison offers several perspectives on Lucas Buchanan, the governor of Carthage colony. After reading the book, do you see Buchanan as a tyrant or a victim of the events he himself set into motion?

7. Pattison has often stated that when writing his novels his characters become very real companions to him. What would it be like to have companions living on the other side of the apocalypse?

8. Why would the characters in Ashes treat the ruins of the prior world—our current world-- and chronicles of the years just prior to the apocalypse as taboo? For many colonists, Pattison writes, "Revealing modern history to your children was like telling them they had a genetic disease." If you were a survivor of that world with children born afterwards, how do you think you would describe that lost world to them?

9. Pattison states that in writing Ashes he began to sense tension between the survivors and the new generation. Jori Waller rails at Hadrian that "the only real people to you are in your nightmares!" How do you think a character born after the apocalypse would view the lost world? With resentment? With sympathy? With fear?

10. A shadow seems to lurk in many scenes of Ashes. Often it seems this must be the annihilation of the prior civilization—our civilization. But sometimes it feels like it may be civilization itself. Which is it?

11. In describing his alternate future Pattison has stated "Everything has changed. Nothing has changed." What do you think he means?

12. Pattison's novels are often said to span genres. Ashes of the Earth may be a mystery but it is also speculative fiction, and often has the atmosphere of an historical novel. How would you characterize it?