Despatches is narrated by a war correspondent covering the Gallipoli campaign of WWI and effortlessly fuses classic literature and Lovecraftian horror.
I loved the epistle format and the periodic language, and I found it hard not to consider the book in the same vein as the classic works of HG Wells or Jules Verne. Like all books in the genre I have enjoyed, Despatches questions war and the nature of those who wage it, and if, even in humankind’s darkest moments, there is always some sense of hope amongst the carnage.
Or perhaps the irony that, as humanity fights with itself, it fast becomes blind to more pressing, potent enemies waiting for the opportunity to usurp all. There is genuine excitement to the final act and the story’s conclusion is poignant and heartfelt, making for an exhilarating and satisfying read.
Daily Star war correspondent Cassius Smythe is off to the Dardanelles to report on the Allied campaign. That is, if only the War Office will let him tell the truth. But after months in the trenches at Anzac Cove, Smythe learns that it isn’t just the Ottoman who wish to claim back the land, and the truth is as slippery as a serpent . . .
Set against a backdrop of apocalyptic climate change, Sharma’s book is part retelling of a Greek myth, part dystopian nightmare, fused together with an inventive narrative, interwoven with beautifully crafted writing.
I found that one of the book’s greatest strengths is its effective use of metaphor, leaving the reader to consider possible futures and endings, elements that I always enjoy when reading fiction centered around the fallibility and rigor of the human condition. I loved Pomegranates and its sublime storytelling.
Pomegranates is a dystopian tale, where climate change is an all-too-real backdrop to the events of the novella. Persephone is in the Underworld, relating her family’s history to a human who’s found his way there. As events unfold, and we see the horror her anger has unleashed on the world, we’re drawn deeper and deeper into the heart of this amazing story. The author has drawn a vivid picture of the world’s decay set against the backdrop of the repercussions of a dysfunctional family. And what a family it is―the gods themselves, bringing destruction on us all.
I love science fiction told with a ‘classical’ slant (for example Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke) and The Last Star takes this approach but infuses it with a modern-day ethos.
An interstellar spacecraft—Drake—crosses the universe, its captain woken from stasis with a few other crewmembers, only to find the rest of their human cargo have been suffocated en route.
I think that Grimwood’s tale is told with such bleakness and detail, it makes for a beguiling read; from the very real friction between the crew as they battle the gravity of being the last few representatives of humanity, the mesmerizing ethical conflict of a genetically crafted ‘future-race’ to propagate humans as a species at the edge of the known universe, and then the poignant and shocking conclusion. I thought this was a cracking read.
Stasis and inorganic self-repair, new spacefaring technologies for humankind, yet more gifts from its closest extra-terrestrial ally, the Iaens. There are, it seems, no limits to humanity’s outward journey. Then Lana Reed, Mission Commander of the interstellar colony seeder, Drake, awakes from her own stasis to discover that all but three of the vessel’s other tanks are dark, their occupants suffocated, screaming yet unheard in their high-tech coffins. But the stasis tanks are not all that is dark. The sensors return no readings from outside. The external vid-feeds show only unending blackness. There are no…
HEaR TODaY… A mutant strain of meningitis has wiped out most of mankind. The few who have survived the fever are now deaf. Bitter with loss and terrified to leave the city known as Cathedral, the inhabitants rely on The Samaritans, search teams sent out into the surrounding countryside. Their purpose, to hunt down and enslave the greatest commodity on Earth, an even smaller group of people immune to the virus, people who can still hear.
People like me. My name is Chris. This is my story.
