Love Letters to Science Fiction: Part One

Words: Charles Hay

The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke

Science fiction is often treated as an enormously mixed bag with a few stand out examples completely out-numbered by dross. Quite how this differs from every other form of human creativity is beyond me, but many seem to cling to the idea of science fiction as "child's stuff" or even as an irrelevant side-show.

Over the next few weeks, I want to introduce you to several authors and novels which will not only challenge pre-conceptions about science-fiction, they will hopefully expand your horizons, change your perspectives and, perhaps most importantly, inspire you.

Science fiction has the potential to be misogynistic, formulaic, hackneyed and crass. A lot of it is simple 19th century colonialism or age-old revenge fantasies dressed up in silver and spaceships. Disregard this side of the genre as you would un-funny comedy at Cannes or Carling at a beer festival. Instead listen: science fiction's true potential is a transcendent rediscovery of our world, or humanity, our future and our past, the nature of reality, of time, of life of death and of almost literally every philosophical conundrum you can think of. It is that big. The true greats are those who dared to stare at the world and find in themselves a canvas big enough on which to paint the chaotic true portrait of reality. Science fiction at its best can feel like the universe being stretched and warped around you. It can invoke true wonder of beauty and eternity, and it can allow you to see this in humanity in a way I have never experienced elsewhere. With this in mind, I am starting this series with an unequalled masterpiece, The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke.

In one billion years time, humanity on Earth survives in a city, Diaspar. organised and stabilised on the molecular level. Earth is a dead waste, and humanity survives in a harmonious and completely peaceful senescence, memories of hundreds of millions of years of interstellar civilisation kept at bay by a cultural fear of outside invaders. I only wish I could do justice to the feeling Clarke's description of this world gave me. The almost palpable sensation of the sheer depths of time left behind, and the vertiginous knowledge of infinite time in the future. All citizens on Diaspar live for a thousand years, after which they are re-incorporated into the central computer, to be re-awakened to new life at some essentially random point in the future. The city itself is structured so as to avoid any issue with minor issues like the eventual total degradation of the universe. Those who live there are, therefore, guaranteed an unendingly infinite experience. Amazingly, completely amazingly, Arthur C Clarke succeeds in just about suggesting what this existence feels like. He achieves is with such aplomb that I simply could not imagine it done better. The dying Earth feels so real and Diaspar becomes such a convincing environment that it is only a very straight-forward and intuitive move to considering humanity's colossal forays into the universe and their almost god-like influence.

Through the time spent reading this book, I dreamt of walking the streets of this city of ten million, so perfectly balanced, always mid-afternoon, always clean and beautiful. Towering spires, the river, the transcendent art, the conscientious and inquiring people. All of knowledge, all of time at your demand, with only two, or maybe three major flaws.

The first is that these people are essentially trapped, although they would not perceive it that way. They do not leave because they have no need to, but this is clearly contrary to human nature; an avenue explored with wonderfully astute deliberation on what is necessary to keep a population both happy and trapped. I do not want to say much more on that subject, other than that its treatment is inspired.

The second is similar. Their city, Diaspar, travels further and further down the river of time, and Clarke portrays this as an increasing isolation felt almost spacially. I felt the inertia of time through this novel almost physically. I think this was accentuated by the desertified Earth described here. Whether or not it was intended, I could not help but associate the vast, vast distances in time as endless shimmering deserts, limiting your vision to horizons as far away as the beginning and end of your own civilisation and no further. After that, it becomes difficult, almost impossible to imagine. The inhabitants of Diaspar could not look back sensibly to our world. Our culture, our ways, or technology and politics would make no sense to them. I would absolutely want to spend a day or a week in Diaspar, but its sheer distance from the world I hold dear would make it always seem so remote, so alien. It was a sublime experience to dip in and out of this experience of distance and loneliness in time.

The third is an age old question, also related directly to the experience of eternity. Who wants to live forever? It is a question I had considered through my formative years, but this novel gave me a framework over which to structure the question in such a way that it has never left me. Immortality is treated in an extremely sensible way here, in that every time someone is "born" again for another thousand years. This gives scope for personalities changing with every incarnation to promote dynamism, but still - a continuous sequence of memories stretching back over eons of time? Daunting. The possibility of staring forward through your life and seeing endless, eternal personal history? That's enough to break a brain. This novel haunts as much as it inspires, and even its methods of haunting are inspiring.

I hope I have given some suitable idea of the sheer size of this book. It is just enormous. And the humanity of it fits. It is authors like Arthur C Clarke that fill me with so, so much hope. He was so convinced of human potential, resilience and permanence, and I am too. We will do things wrong time and time again, but our progress is marked more significantly by what we do right. We create civilisations and methods balancing stability and forward momentum. We use the malleable reality we exist within to create something more significant and more wonderful than any one of us can create. Look at the world around you. We are doing it in our cultures, our countries, our cities. Sooner, rather than later, we shall do it in the stars.

Book Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Words: Rosie Parry

I do not have much experience of reading Oscar Wilde apart from the Importance of being Earnest which virtually leaps off the page with humour and life.

However, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a completely different genre altogether. The premise of the story begins with Dorian ‘sitting’ for his painter friend Basil Hallward. Dorian is an extremely attractive young man and his friend  Basil feels he is completing the best work of his life- so much so - that he feels his own soul is being exposed in the painting and he feels he will never be able to exhibit the piece as it is too personal. He also feels that Dorian is his ‘muse’ and as long as he has him in his presence his work is better than he has ever executed in his life before.

Enter Lord Henry Wotton, another friend of Basil’s, who happened to be present during one of Dorian’s sittings. He is excited and interested in Dorian himself. Wotton is a libertine and despite being begged by Basil to leave the young Dorian alone, it seems he is too enchanted by the boy’s beauty  and youth to leave him uncorrupted.

Dorian and Wotton become great friends and, during one of the last sittings of his painting, they exchange such an unusual conversation that Dorian expresses a desire to sell his soul to stay as young as he looks in the picture. The completed work is gifted to Dorian and he hangs it in his home proudly whilst all the time receiving instruction and publications to guide his course towards ruination from the blaggard Wotton.

Essentially, the story is sound and entertaining but is thwarted by Wilde’s soliloquies to his audience (the reader), who I feel  he is attempting to educate on works written by other literary greats throughout history and this does become boring to the reader.

The story continues with Dorian falling in love with an actress on the stage, whose beauty is breathtaking and whose acting ability is the same. However, on the evening Dorian decides to take his friends Basil and Wotton, she is no less beautiful but her acting has become wooden and unmoving. This leaves Dorian in a complete funk and when he meets his lover  Sibyl after the show he petulantly tells her he is no longer in love. As she entreats him to understand that having experienced ‘true love’ it has left her void of being able to ‘act’ as though in love. Dorian withdraws his marriage proposal and the girl, Sibyl Vane, kills herself (Juliet style) the very next day, before Dorian can have a change of heart. Dorian realises that his heart is not as entirely broken as he would imagine. It is at this point that Dorian notices that the painting has taken on an ‘aged’ and ‘cruel’ expression leaving Dorian completely unmarked by the experience. He decides to hide the painting from this point on and, despite living an extremely libertine life henceforth, he bears no marks of this existence but when he visits his hidden painting he watches it age and deteriorate before his eyes- finding it both fascinating and horrifying at the same time.

Eventually, Basil hears of all Dorian’s debauched behaviours and takes him to task- ending in Dorian allowing him to see the painting in all its fantastical glory and also resulting in Dorian murdering the creator.

Me and Oscar in London. (Charles Dickens seems to be behind us)

The disappointing part of the story is that apart from referring to an opium den Dorian frequents, the reader is protected from all of the other extremes of Dorian’s nature and have to rely entirely on their own ‘imagination’.

Wilde is obviously a most gifted writer and many have quoted his works with passion. I can only speak for myself as a reader and  say that I found the novel hard-going in parts. Whilst the essential story is remarkably clever and some of the descriptions of the painter’s garden were beautiful and made you long to be there, at other points it felt as though Wilde was indulging himself rather than concentrating on his own work.

The end of the book involves Dorian realising the error of his ways and he attempts to destroy the ‘ugly’ painting which carries his sins - at this point Dorian dies and takes on his true persona whilst the painting reverts back to the beauteous virtue it carried at the outset.

A richly woven story which I feel may be one of the few books better suited to stage or film (faster paced) than it does in print.

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★

Book Review: My Secret Life- Anonymous or “Walter”

Words: Rosie Parry

 “I early had a taste for female form, it was born with me.”

The fascinating memoirs of a ‘respectable’ gentleman living in 19^th century London give a rare and unique insight into the attitudes towards women, sex and prostitution in a time of frigidity and repression.  Personally, this time in history interests me greatly and the book, which I had never heard of and stumbled across by chance, encapsulates the dark and mysterious world of the capital in the 1800s. The text almost escaped any recognition, being a controversial piece of erotica, and caused printers and publishers to be arrested or imprisoned due to their involvement with it. It is alleged that the original eleven volumes were locked away in a British library for some time, banned for their depravity, and were only published in their entirety in 1995. I discuss only the first three volumes which detail how the book came to be, Walter’s childhood and education about sex and also his experiences from teenage boy to young man. I focus on the relationships he had with certain women and also the ambiguity that surrounds the text. 

The text begins with a foreword from a man who was given a peculiar package whilst his friend was gravely ill. The instructions were that the package was not to be opened until the man had died, if he survived the package was to be returned to him. If not, it was allowed to be seen by the receiver’s eyes only and then burnt. The demise came and the parcel was opened, the inheritor writes, “the more I read it, the more marvelous it seemed.” For some years he wondered what he would do with it and, ignoring his friend’s wish, came to the conclusion: “feeling that it would be sinful to destroy such a history, I copied the manuscript and destroyed the original. No one can now trace the author, no names are mentioned in the book […] If I have done harm in printing it, I have done none to him, […] and given to a few a secret history which bears the impress of truth on every page, a contribution to psychology.”

As you can imagine, I was eager to learn more. The text reads like a gripping mystery novel and critics have wondered if the text is indeed purely fictional. However, many disagree because the novel is extremely repetitive and unstructured, written years after the events in a muddled manner which is unlike fiction. Regardless, the story continues to be obsessive because it is such an intriguing insight in to a world of pseudonyms and banned publication, an expose of the animal that raged within the Victorian.

Before delving into Walter’s world, I would like to state that this discussion is not for the sole purpose of recommendation. Walter was deeply infatuated with sex of any form: be it masturbation, voyeurism, pedophilia in one case, forced, bought or group. He is graphic in detail about some of the most debasing sexual acts probably recorded in this format at the time- hence the anonymity. For the purpose of this blog, I discovered that the word ‘c*nt’ appears 1,035 times in the three volumes I read. Therefore, I advise those who are easily offended to leave it be.

Walter was never educated about sex, the knowledge he gained was through spying with his cousin Fred or noticing that his baby siblings had something that wasn’t a penis. He and Fred would spy on their older relatives whilst they were using the toilet and discuss what they imagined sex and the uses of genitalia to be. Walter and his classmates would masturbate each other because they knew no better and many of Walt’s first sexual experiences were through maids and cooks that his mother employed . Is it much wonder that sex became so appealing to Walter? It was a tantalising taboo, Walter would even peek through keyholes in order to catch a glimpse of a woman in the nude and would then ‘frig’ himself into a frenzy whilst looking at the illustrations in Fanny Hill. To read the book is almost to become a voyeur yourself.

Once older, being of an educated class, Walt used money to buy himself the pleasures that many women wouldn’t give so freely. He writes about sexual experiences with every type and class of prostitute you could possibly imagine, from old to young or backstreet to grand apartment. Some he found repulsive, others he writes about as an artist who has found their Mona Lisa.

Sarah Mavis seems to be “the one that got away” for poor old Walt. She was aloof, she was unlike any prostitute or lady he had even lain with because she was a woman who was indifferent to him, she intimidated him. Not to mention she had the physical form that Walter held so highly; “fleshy limbs and a fat backside.” She was expensive and infuriating; Walter seemed to have fallen for her at first sight: “I saw a pair of feet in lovely boots which seemed perfection, and calves which were exquisite.” It’s important to note that Walter was unhappily married during the latter volumes and had asked Sarah to elope with him. He’d offered to flee the country with Sarah - he paid for her living and wanted to provide for her as his mistress - he confesses to have loved her. She wouldn’t leave her husband for him and he was left heartbroken. He later writes that he believed she was found dead in the Thames. It’s not typically romantic but there seems to be something tragically Shakespearian about the whole seedy affair. 

I find the concept of this secret life extraordinary, had this man not written what he did, we would never know about Sarah Mavis or her sad existence or the worship one man had for her. The little conversations and glances would have died with them. The thing that frustrates me and draws me to the book is the subtle clues and jigsaw pieces that Walt gives us and Sarah Mavis is so intriguing because she is one of those pieces. Who was she? We are told she had been an actress in a troupe, she had been a model for artists and she had only begun prostituting herself in order to support her family and earn money to start a business.

Walt writes: “Then she told me she had in her youth been a model for artists, had sat to Etty and Frost, hers was the form which had been painted in many of their pictures, - and then she would say no more.” William Edward Frost is widely recognised as a follower of William Etty, both painted the female form during the Victorian era. I was naturally curious to see some of their work in the hope of seeing Sarah Mavis. The first picture of the female form I have included in this piece is by Etty and the second is a painting of a woman’s face by Frost. In my fantasy of discovering who Sarah Mavis is, I have re-read Walt’s descriptions of Sarah’s full form and depiction of her face and I’d love to imagine that either could be her.

Here is a short description of Sarah Mavis’ face by Walt:

“Handsome her face certainly was, but it was of a somewhat heavy character: her eyes were dark, soft and vague in expression which together with the habit of leaving her lips slightly open, gave her a thoughtful, and at times half-vacant look. Her nose was charming and retroussé, her mouth small, with full lips, and a delicious set of very small white teeth, her hair was nearly black, long, thick and coarsish dark hair in large quantity was in her armpits, and showed slightly when her arms were down, her arms and breasts were superb.”

 Of course, I will never know who either of them were but that’s part of the appeal of the memoirs. I found the description of Sarah to be so close to the picture included that I felt almost like Sherlock Holmes. My detective work leaves a lot to be desired but others are just as hopeless as finding out any more about the author’s identity. One critic genuinely believes that Walt was Jack the Ripper; saying that Walt had the “means and the motive” to be the prostitute slayer. So much secrecy and speculation is what makes the text so thoroughly obsessive. Many believe that Henry Spencer Ashbee is Walt, a collector and writer of erotic literature, but who is to say he is? Like Jack the Ripper, Walt’s identity is a dead man’s secret.

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★★

Book Review: The Book of the New Sun - Shadow and Claw

Words: Charles Hay 

This is not your usual science fiction novel. This is not your usual fantasy novel. Like Dune and Lord of the Rings, it occupies a space normally held for the likes of The Odyssey or Beowulf. The world building here is monolithic in scope and mind-bending in detail.

The Book of the New Sun is set countless years from now. The blurb would have you believe a million, but the details of the story suggest way beyond that, perhaps in the tens or hundreds of millions of years from now. Society on Earth (here described as "Urth") is stratified in the absolute extreme, with the majority knowing only the land-based toil of work and war, almost entirely unaware of the extent of power their leaders exercise. The top layer of civilisation here clearly has the power over the universe, wrapped and disguised in baroque systems of leadership and separation. It is an absolutely compelling world Wolfe has created here, very often bringing to mind the eternal truism of Arthur C. Clarke: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' And so it is here, on Urth. If there is awe of technology here, it is awe of something elemental and powerful, rather than awe of something novel or revolutionary.

The central protagonist, Severian, is a member of the torturers guild of his particular polity, and throughout this novel (comprising the first two books in a sequence of four), he starts his journey towards greatness. Now, this is a winding and serendipitous journey, and if there is one flaw here, it is that Severian's special skill seems to be being in the right place at the right time but I must stress that the narrative does account for this in ways too marvellous to ruin by describing here. Against the mesmerising, endlessly expanding and occasionally psychedelic backdrop of Urth, he sometimes seems a little flat, or perhaps bland, and this is something I would say about many of the characters here. They may have interesting personal traits, and incredible back-stories, but on the whole, they are dealt with in an almost incidental way that occasionally frustrates. It is not a technique that stands in the way of the imagination, - Wolfe always gives information enough to set your synapses alight - but I do sometimes wish he'd get a little excited about these fascinating people he's creating. The whole novel is ostensibly being narrated by Severian himself, however, so a reasonable argument could be made that this descriptive style is in keeping with the rest of the book.

Oh good grief I wish I could go into the details of the book here. There is so much I want to write about but I absolutely cannot risk spoiling anything for people wanting to read it. The scope just increases and increases. On several occasions whilst reading, I found myself slowly lowering the book and staring into a mental image of what had just happened or been described. Several chapters were completely re-read. There is a wonderful dreamlike feeling to everything which, somewhat perversely, gives a very human experiential quality to events. The rigid and focused cause=effect dogma of drama is eschewed for the 'what the hell just really happened' reality of our actual lives. And, despite my earlier misgivings about Wolfe's descriptive style regarding characters, Severian's lack of narrative omniscience makes the world feel all that much more tangible and lived in. There are walls past which we cannot see, countless aeons of time lost in mist, lives blocked off from our scrutiny. Just as narrative experimentation, it is highly gratifying. As science fiction, a genre so often given to overt info-bombs and clunky exposition, it is a nigh-on miraculous feat of finessed restraint.

Here is a world filled with imported alien animals, a dimming red sun, hundreds of different perspectives of half-glimpsed history, humans as gods, humans as animals, humans as humans. This is a wondrous exploration into hypothesis that lends a cracked mirror to our own condition without ever being hackneyed observation. It is a transcendent attempt at representing the far, far future as not the future, but the now, with all its quirks and pasts and beauty and ugliness.

Gene Wolfe has created something here which is spellbinding and terrifying. I implore you to explore it.

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★★★

Fiction: A Caged Mind & I

Words: Cassie Degg

What's in a name? It gives us our character, usually defined by our attributes or a feeling a parent has about how we will eventually turn out. "So why not give your name to something you are inherently proud of?" This is a question I regularly get asked by readers of my work and I always give the same answer. "A name is a marker. I am giving the reader no markers at all." No indication of age, gender, creed, religion, location, socioeconomics, etc. gives no room for preconceptions.

Then comes the inevitable "Why J.W.Carter then?" The J is for Jacob, the first protagonist I created within a seminar environment whilst studying at Manchester Metropolitan University. He was a bit of a 'Jack the Lad'; Jacob when his mother disapproves of his behaviour. W for William, my grandfather's forename. The relationship between my grandparents and my writing grew as both were in deteriorating health. When I began my application to my preferred university, they revelled in knowing I was going to truly relish the opportunity to study at one of the top Writing Schools in the country. Carter's a common surname but it's not just the acknowledgement of anyone being able to write; it's about being able to craft a story, to transport someone to another world via language, the words we all share.

Caged was a strenuous project in its development. Growing from an idea to its appearance on the Amazon Kindle Store, it cemented itself as a challenge and a testament to where I began, the roots of me as an individual.

I didn't want the piece to be a showcase of writing (even though the praise and response it received was pleasant and an added benefit). The story was a dedication to two individuals that had helped in my upbringing and had been a constant fixture in my life. My grandmother passed away from dementia in late 2011. After stringent research on the NHS and with having second-hand experience of the disease itself, I set out to fully understand the condition and to banish my personal grief.

All the characters are understatedly Northern; their dialects, their acknowledgements of each other and even the places they inhabit. The town of Warrington in Cheshire is a character in itself, alluded to by Black Bear Bridge, St. Mary's Street and the Wire (Warrington is, of course, famous for its wire works). It's my birthplace and a town the majority of my family have spent their lives in.

Caged is an ode to family, to humanity, to that fine, fine line between what's real and what's not. It is something I will forever be proud of associating myself with.

Caged is out now on Amazon Kindle.

Book Review: The Casual Vacancy

Words: Rosie Parry

To pick up The Casual Vacancy with visions of being wrapped in the security of one of Mrs Weasley’s lovingly-knitted jumpers would be naïve. Long gone are the days of a clip around the ear from Uncle Vernon and the long anticipated and oh-so-sweet teenage kisses between Harry and Ginny. Instead, welcome to a world where the ‘conservative’ Rowling unleashes a world of domestic violence, infidelity, substance abuse, racism, self-harm, teen sex and intimations of inbreeding. Scary, even by the Dark Lord’s standards. 

The story follows the intricate web of lives of the people of Pagford, a quintessential small town inhabited by small-town folk, following the untimely death of the councilman, Barry Fairbrother. Barry, loved or loathed, left a seat on the Parish Council. Once filled, this seat could determine the outcome of a controversial effort to rid the town of its council estate (The Fields) and methadone rehab clinic, by allowing them to become part of the neighbouring city. The proud ‘Pagfordians’ who have lived in the town for generations, traditional views as unchanging as their DNA, would like to see the centre in a neat pile of rubble ready to be swept away and forgotten. The Liberal squad of doctors, social workers and teachers are pro-centre and so begins a deep-rooted and venomous feud that bubbles under the surface of the charming rural setting and infests it completely. 

Sound boring? Bring on the teenagers with schemes of sabotage and betrayal. Rowling’s infamously subtle approach to writing allows the reader to immerse themselves in this village of gun powder, treason and plot (whilst the rest of the train watches you sat over your kindle gasping with shock). I would almost compare the book to a soap-opera. Rowling’s notoriously descriptive style, noting each delicate change in tone or body language, allows her to paint a perfect still of each character whilst, adversely, her larger-than life portrayals of them almost reach caricature. (Admittedly this can be rather long-winded at times). The soap-opera metaphor continues down to the format she chooses, with each chapter centering on an individual character.  These characters are, in true Rowling fashion, mirrors to society with political tones framing them in all their glory. The controversial topics are indeed reflected in modern Britain but I found myself asking (as I often do whilst watching a soap), would all of this be happening in one little village? Who cares? It was dramatic, emotional and shocking. But then so is Emmerdale.

Perhaps this comparison is unfair. A lot of small-town dwellers may empathise with their own town issues and gossip. This idle chatter becomes as addictively enticing as reading the national news, if not more so. Pagfordian lives are intertwined, from the GP to the delicatessen owner, and this doesn’t mean that it’s unrealistic. Conceivably, any small town or village inhabitant in the UK could pinpoint each of Rowling’s controversial topics in their own town: ‘she slept with her friend’s husband’ and ‘he is a smack-head’ etc. Either way, Rowling has Nimbus 3000-ed away from fantasy and has found herself firmly rooted in adult fiction. 

“This is a local shop for local people!”
 - The League of Gentlemen 

In fact, she’s so deep-rooted in adult fiction, she’s almost gritty. I found myself cheering her on at times, other moments it felt like my mother was revealing too much about her teenage years. How the hell does she know how to skin up a joint? Oh please life-giver to Dobby, don’t talk about sex! She delves into cyber-bullying, mimics accents and writes candidly about pornography and masturbation. Of course, she’s done her research but her keen eye on society doesn’t go unnoticed. Each character has a trait of someone the reader will have met in life: ‘she’s petty, just like my mother-in-law’ or ‘he loves himself, he reminds me of Dave from work', it would be fair to say she is the literary observationalist to Peter Kay‘s comedic. 

That The Casual Vacancy will draw comparisons to Harry Potter is as inevitable as Elizabeth ending up with Mr. Darcy, but at times I had to ask, is she going out of her way to steer away from expectation? Whatever her motivation, I lived in Pagford for the duration of my read and I’d advise you to give it a visit. 

Oxford Road rating: ★★★★

Book Review: Rot and Ruin

Words: Lindsay Bradley

Jonathan Maberry overhauls the zombie genre in Rot and Ruin as humans have long admitted defeat against the zombies. This twist is not new but what makes it worthy of attention is that it begins fourteen years after the First Night and the human race are no longer in charge.

The novel follows Benny Imura, 15, as he desperately attempts to find a job in the fenced community where he lives with his half-brother Tom. The only problem is that they don’t get along. What is peculiar is that it takes fourteen years for Tom to open up to Benny about what happened to their parents. Benny blames Tom for what happened and he simply allows him to believe that. The only way Tom is willing to communicate is if Benny chooses to become a bounty hunter like himself. Surely they would have talked or had some form of confrontation about something as important as their parent’s deaths.

Things get more exciting when Benny finally agrees to join his brother as an apprentice and they head into the rot and ruin. Their relationship too improves and becomes more complex and appealing as Tom begins to open up about his work. Finally Benny gets to see and experience what these zombies he has only heard about from behind the fence. There is plenty of gore and zombie-filled action but Maberry tries too hard to humanise them, as many humans would prefer to live out in the rot and ruin with them.

The town itself is well protected and everyone contributes to the community. It is oddly satisfying to read that although the world as we know it has ended, the human race has found a way to survive despite no longer being the leading race. Many of the residents are afraid and resent these ‘other’ creatures despite them once being human and a part of someone’s family. This is where Tom comes in. His job as a bounty hunter requires Tom to kill zombies but as he supposedly can do no wrong, he chooses to kill them with ‘dignity.’ The same courtesy is not extended to his colleagues. This raises the question: are zombies the real villains?

A major problem with the narrative is that Benny is depicted as incredibly immature. For a 15 year old, he most certainly acts much younger, throwing tantrums when things don’t go his way. The other characters are ignorant to his attitude and, for some baffling reason, look to him as a leader.

Overall, the action and plot are gripping but the issue is the relationships between the characters. Benny’s relationship with Nix feels forced and seems like it is used as a reason for Benny to go out into the rot and ruin.

That being said, the novel is likely to delight fans of zombie fiction as it gives a new twist to the somewhat overpopulated genre.

Oxford Road rating: ★★★