Photo: SH Design via AdobeStock “‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, / ‘To talk of many things: / Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — / Of cabbages — and kings — / And why the sea is boiling hot — / And whether pigs have wings.’”—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding …
Continue reading Stepping through the Looking Glass: A Journey through Speculative Fiction
Published by Faber & Faber, 1952, 136 pages. This is the story of a man who does nothing but drink palm wine, something he has done since he was ten years old. His father, realizing that his son would never do anything else, gives him a palm-tree farm with 560,000 palm trees so that he …
Translated from Lithuanian by Marija MarcinkutePublished by Noir Press, 2018, 175 pages. Original version published in 2018. The Last Day is a book of absurdist short stories by a Lithuanian writer. The protagonists, mainly men (with one exception), are victims of circumstance, caught up in strange situations that they cannot control. In the title story, …
Titus Groan / Gormenghast / Titus AlonePublished by Penguin / Methuen / Vintage. Titus Groan, 1946, 506 pages. Gormenghast, 1950, 511 pages. Titus Alone, 1959; revised version published in 1970, 263 pages. “Gormenghast.“Withdrawn and ruinous, it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracts. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires …
Published by Orbit, 2015, 468 pages. “This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another. This has happened before, after all. People die. Old orders pass. New societies are born. When we say ‘the world has ended,’ it’s usually a lie, because the planet is just fine."But …
Published by Pushkin Press, 2012, 322 pages. The stray cats of Nizamuddin are on edge. They sense a new cat in their neighbourhood. This is no ordinary feline: this is a Sender. The cats of Nizamuddin, an old neighbourhood of Delhi, can communicate with each other over long distances, not just by mews but by …
Published by Raven Books / Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024, 332 pages. It is the end of the world as we know it. A black fog has swept through the world, destroying every living thing in its wake: “the fog kills anything it touches...Unfortunately, it covers the entire earth, except for our island and half a mile …
Continue reading The Last Murder at the End of the World: Stuart Turton
Translated from Chinese by Julia LovellPublished by Penguin, 2021, 339 pages. First published in English in 1942, translated by Arthur Waley. Original version published in 1592. Some books never age but feel as fresh as if they were written yesterday. Monkey King is one of these: a Chinese classic, written in the 16th century. Its …
Continue reading Monkey King—Journey to the West: Wu Cheng’en
Translated from French by Adriana HunterPublished by Michael Joseph, 2022, 336 pages. Original version published in 2020. March 2021. Air France flight 006 from Paris to New York is nearing JFK airport when it flies into a huge cloud and experiences severe turbulence. After some terrifying moments, the plane emerges and lands. Three months later, …
Published by Viking / Chatto & Windus, 2022, 403 pages. “The Father of the Nation...was at an age when what was most important to him was to be left alone, and besides, those who know about things said the state of affairs inside his head wasn’t unlike a tumultuous country without a clear leader.” Jidada, …
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