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Le Guin’s Worlds

Worlds of Exile and Illusion collects Ursula K. Le Guin’s first three SF novels, first published in 1966 and 1967. Although sometimes clunky, there’s something quite innocent and joyful in these early works, and it’s easy to chart the progress of a writer coming into themself. 

I really enjoyed these novels; all three are propulsive…

Martin Amis Zone of Interest

Back in 2014, the early press coverage for The Zone of Interest seemed horrified at the thought that Amis would attempt a comedy set in Auschwitz. He doesn't. Not quite. What he does is describe an extended world around the death camp, a world were 'normal' life occurs for the Nazi staffers, assistants and their…

Into Burroughs’ Interzone

Junky Junky is the gateway drug, the doorway into the fevered, dystopian world of William S. Burroughs. For me it was the key to Naked Lunch, or if not precisely the key, then the welcome mat –albeit old, tattered and covered in excrement, droppers and used needles. Burroughs' first novel is a streetwise account of…

M. John Harrison Novels – Ranked

M. John Harrison is one of my favourite contemporary writers and 2023 has been a notable year for him. His 'anti-memoir' Wish I Was Here is one of the biggest selling books of his career. This follows on from being a Booker Prize judge last year. (It can be no coincidence that Alan Garner appeared…

The Crisis of Amis’ London Fields

“This wicked book I tried to write, plagiarised from real life.” London Fields is surely Amis' masterpiece, uncouth, unruly and gloriously funny, and one of the great London novels to boot. Presciently, the millennial chaos of the world Amis depicted back in 1989 is worryingly similar to the one I see on the news today.…

The Remainder – Tom McCarthy

An exhilarating Ballardian novel of ideas circulating around obsession, authenticity and the nature of reality. The anonymous narrator has undergone intensive rehabilitation after a traumatic accident, but it has left him adrift from life, alienated from reality. He sees himself as ‘an interloper’, ‘a voyeur’ to the real. In an effort to reconnect to reality…

The Paranoia of Topor’s The Tenant

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they’re not after you is the maxim at the heart of Roland Topor's The Tenant. This 1964 French novel details the breakdown of Monsieur Trelkovsky, the titular tenant, after he moves into a Paris apartment following the previous occupants' suicide. The novel, imbued with elements of surrealism, explores the dark…

Summer Reading Martin Amis

Experience: A Memoir (2000) This superb memoir was my gateway drug back into the world of Martin Amis, and started my summer reading binge of all things Amis. Back in the 1990s, unfortunately I fell hook, line and sinker for the privileged and disagreeable persona that the British press painted him as, it was open…

Butterfly Dream – Kristine Ong Muslim Review

Kristine Ong Muslim’s Butterfly Dream features eight short (and I stress short) stories spread over a scant thirty-five pages. Each story is a glimpse into an arcane, dream world that resonates deeper than its brevity would imply. Most of the tales here are a page and a half long, they are surreal vignettes, gnostic prose…