What was still apocalyptic twenty years ago has become banal today. [...]
Well researched on global warming, Ligny is extraordinary. We can imagine this horrific future, in which the younger generation knows it is the last. The implications of global warming are impressive, with the images of these completely submerged countries that Olaf and his wife travel through. [...]
In short, Exodes is a post-apocalyptic novel chosen on impulse, read very quickly and above all finished at 3 in the morning. It has all the right ingredients for a book of this genre, not to mention the original construction that gives it all the more effect. I recommend it to all apocalyptic fans, and to those who would like to discover the genre. Thanks and well done Jean-Marc Ligny!
Un papillon dans la lune
If Jean-Marc Ligny's novel wins hands down on the action, he offers a lot more than a "Mad Max" story. Making us trail after some of these survivors, who occasionally encounter each other, he invites us to think about the indomitable humanity in each. What remains when there is nothing left? A beautiful novel, in a twilight world to die for.
Buveurs d'encre
The writing is dynamic, with no superfluous detail, and the author shows rather drily, exactly in keeping with the theme, the different ways human beings react when faced with the unbearable, whether it be on the personal or the social level. A racist dictatorship or the creation of "life domes" logically appear as "solutions", along with their accompanying short term egotism that we can so easily recognize.
It's black, hopeless and disheartening, but unfortunately very believable. All in all, a novel that should be read straightaway, in the hope that the decision makers read the accompanying bibliography, and take heed. Sadly that's a lot to ask.
Mureliane, Les Chroniques de l'Imaginaire
Xavier Noÿ
Just the right balance is achieved in this interesting read presenting a possible future, which is certainly still avoidable unless humanity genuinely wants it. Except if it continues to tread its destructive path to extinction.
Chris, Mythologica
Having read this book, what we have to do is to find out what we can do so that it doesn't become reality, perhaps even more rapidly than the anticipated date...
Phénixweb
Powerful descriptions abound in this novel where each droplet of happiness is swiftly obliterated by torrents of hopelessness, where images of a devastated world are crammed together until it is yet more wrecked, be it only by human hand. Jean Marc Ligny is a writer who is capable of emphasizing the worst that humanity can offer and of stifling all hope just in the description of a simple charred bone.
So must all hope be abandoned? Perhaps not, a spark may still exist in this future. If hope and despair confront each other in Exodes, there may not necessarily be winners even if there are many losers. Exodes is therefore very pessimistic yet enthralling, accurately describing through a great anticipatory novel the climatic and human upheavals awaiting us.
Stigg, Psychovision
But the novel is not a Manichean confrontation between monsters and good guys (us, of course), that would be too easy for the reader. For every man and woman living on this desolate Earth, the struggle for survival has become the only reality, even if it has taken on less obviously predatory forms. [...]
The strong survive, the weak die; but strength is not really in the body, rather in the mind: it's the acceptance of doing what must be done to survive, whatever the cost. In his Exodes - Leraf's cover captures the atmosphere perfectly - Ligny is terrifying because he is convincing.
Gromovar, Quoi de neuf sur ma pile ?
Who would have thought that global warming could strike such a chill in one's heart...?
Le Trégor
A highly commendable novel then. Not one of those that dazzles you with its ground-breaking scientific concepts or even less leaves you cheered when you have finished it, but rather encourages you to meditate on the worrying plausibility of this particular end of the world and perhaps to reconsider certain of your convictions. Over and above the message he wishes to convey, Jean-Marc Ligny manages to bring his universe and his characters alive with mastery and brilliance and deliver a powerfully sombre novel that remains inevitably etched in our memories.
Michaël F., Les Vagabonds du Rêve Blog
Exodes is a hard-hitting, dark and disheartening book. It is a magnificent novel with its touching, eminently human characters. They are utterly credible in their absurd quests and we naturally warm to them.
Serge Perraud, nooSFere