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Genus
A dystopian vision of perfection from the acclaimed author of Boy A.
In the Britain of a few tomorrows time, physical perfection is commonplace and self improvement has become an extinct expression: all the qualities men and women could aspire to can be purchased prior to birth.
GENUS is a time of genetic selection and enrichment - life chances come on a sliding scale according to wealth. For some there is no money or choice, and an underclass has evolved; London's King's Cross, or The Kross as it is now known, has become a ghetto for the Unimproved. In The Kross, the natural, the dated, the cheap and the dull, live a brittle and unenviable existence. But unrest is growing; tension is mounting and a murderer is abroad in these dark quarters...
Acclaimed author Jonathan Trigell's third novel is a breathtaking tour de force, exploring a dystopia of the not-too-distant-a future which will leave readers wondering not 'what if', as the original audience of Huxley's Brave New World did, but 'when'.
In the Britain of a few tomorrows time, physical perfection is commonplace and self improvement has become an extinct expression: all the qualities men and women could aspire to can be purchased prior to birth.
GENUS is a time of genetic selection and enrichment - life chances come on a sliding scale according to wealth. For some there is no money or choice, and an underclass has evolved; London's King's Cross, or The Kross as it is now known, has become a ghetto for the Unimproved. In The Kross, the natural, the dated, the cheap and the dull, live a brittle and unenviable existence. But unrest is growing; tension is mounting and a murderer is abroad in these dark quarters...
Acclaimed author Jonathan Trigell's third novel is a breathtaking tour de force, exploring a dystopia of the not-too-distant-a future which will leave readers wondering not 'what if', as the original audience of Huxley's Brave New World did, but 'when'.
276 pages
First published January 1, 2011
11 people are currently reading
423 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Trigell
10Ìýbooks48ÌýfollowersJonathan Trigell is a British author. His first novel, entitled Boy A, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2004, the Waverton Good Read Award and the inaugural World Book Day Prize in 2008.
Jonathan completed an MA in creative writing at Manchester University in 2002. He spent most winters in Alps working in the Ski Industry and now lives in Chamonix, France.
Boy A is the story of a child criminal released into society as an adult. It has obvious and presumably deliberate parallels to the fates of the murderers of James Bulger, although the crime itself differs significantly.
Highly acclaimed critically, Boy A was described by Sarah Waters, Chair of the Judges for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, as "a compelling narrative, a beautifully structured piece of writing, and a thought-provoking novel of ideas. It's a wonderful debut."
Trigell's second novel Cham, familiar name of Chamonix , also acquired by Serpent's Tail publishing house, was published in October 2007.
He is currently working on his third novel, Genesis.
Jonathan completed an MA in creative writing at Manchester University in 2002. He spent most winters in Alps working in the Ski Industry and now lives in Chamonix, France.
Boy A is the story of a child criminal released into society as an adult. It has obvious and presumably deliberate parallels to the fates of the murderers of James Bulger, although the crime itself differs significantly.
Highly acclaimed critically, Boy A was described by Sarah Waters, Chair of the Judges for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, as "a compelling narrative, a beautifully structured piece of writing, and a thought-provoking novel of ideas. It's a wonderful debut."
Trigell's second novel Cham, familiar name of Chamonix , also acquired by Serpent's Tail publishing house, was published in October 2007.
He is currently working on his third novel, Genesis.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
August 14, 2011
Well written and thought provoking sci-fi, in a dystopian future world. The riots in London this last week and the right wing politics of
a) welfare parents should have fewer children
b) class separation between haves and have nots
along with the images of fire, burning, arrests, looting and chaos all fit dramatically into this book. I felt I was reading something almost prescient. It challenges what your own prejudices are.
It's written from the point of view of different characters - the stunted Holman with his artistic ability and the perfect Gunt, the policeman with perfect genes but no engineering. It's a violent book in parts, but justified with fascinating characters, an edgy plot and an all too foreseeable future. Highly recommended.
a) welfare parents should have fewer children
b) class separation between haves and have nots
along with the images of fire, burning, arrests, looting and chaos all fit dramatically into this book. I felt I was reading something almost prescient. It challenges what your own prejudices are.
It's written from the point of view of different characters - the stunted Holman with his artistic ability and the perfect Gunt, the policeman with perfect genes but no engineering. It's a violent book in parts, but justified with fascinating characters, an edgy plot and an all too foreseeable future. Highly recommended.
June 26, 2013
My main problem with this book was that I had no idea what the story was really about until about two-thirds of the way through. Up until that point, you're just reading about a number of seemingly random people, a couple of whom have no real impact on the story at all and simply serve to show more about the world. No bad thing I suppose, I just think it would have been cleaner to cut the people and get the requisite information in another way.
Because the world created in this story is pretty interesting. Trigell imagines a future where 'designer babies' are not only the fashion, they are the norm for much of society. Whether it is a simple immunities package, the full works on looks and personality, or anywhere in between, people will pretty much sell their soul to give their child as much as they can. Of course, those who can't afford anything work their way down the social ladder, ending up at the very bottom rung and barely surviving it seems.
I do like the darkness of the book. It doesn't gloss over the nastiness, and indeed the nastiness is the main focus looking at how low people can sink when the government doesn't do anything to help them, and other (better off) people don't care about them at all. There were a couple of very small parts which I found a bit distasteful, but I'm sure these are at least a little to do with my own sensibilities rather them being particularly bad or anything.
There were a range of characters, some we saw a lot of and some we only saw for a chapter or two. As I said before, I think a couple of them could have been cut but for the most part they all served their purpose and provided links to the story and illustrated the various aspects of a world striving for perfection. A lot of the genetic manipulations done to animals (babottweilers: baboon/Rottweiler crosses, I'm assuming) or food stuffs were inventive but realistic - the type of thing we would do given the chance.
But at other times, it felt like too much information was crammed into such a short book. We're given details about the Caliphate Wars, which as far as I could tell were three wars fought against a Europe taken over by religioius extremists but I may be wrong on that count. And we're constantly being told that Gunt has the best genes on the police force. And Gunt is referred to in the third person quite a lot. Gunt does this. Gunt does that. Gunt has the best genes on the force. Gunt doesn't care. Gunt is running around in a circle. Gunt goes home. Gunt has the best genes on the force. This annoyed me quite a lot.
The ending was quite neat, but as a whole the story lacked quite a lot of oomph. It kinda nudged its way to the fore about two-thirds of the way through and spluttered out just before the end of the book. It was an interesting world and an ok idea, but as a whole it could have been so much more.
Because the world created in this story is pretty interesting. Trigell imagines a future where 'designer babies' are not only the fashion, they are the norm for much of society. Whether it is a simple immunities package, the full works on looks and personality, or anywhere in between, people will pretty much sell their soul to give their child as much as they can. Of course, those who can't afford anything work their way down the social ladder, ending up at the very bottom rung and barely surviving it seems.
I do like the darkness of the book. It doesn't gloss over the nastiness, and indeed the nastiness is the main focus looking at how low people can sink when the government doesn't do anything to help them, and other (better off) people don't care about them at all. There were a couple of very small parts which I found a bit distasteful, but I'm sure these are at least a little to do with my own sensibilities rather them being particularly bad or anything.
There were a range of characters, some we saw a lot of and some we only saw for a chapter or two. As I said before, I think a couple of them could have been cut but for the most part they all served their purpose and provided links to the story and illustrated the various aspects of a world striving for perfection. A lot of the genetic manipulations done to animals (babottweilers: baboon/Rottweiler crosses, I'm assuming) or food stuffs were inventive but realistic - the type of thing we would do given the chance.
But at other times, it felt like too much information was crammed into such a short book. We're given details about the Caliphate Wars, which as far as I could tell were three wars fought against a Europe taken over by religioius extremists but I may be wrong on that count. And we're constantly being told that Gunt has the best genes on the police force. And Gunt is referred to in the third person quite a lot. Gunt does this. Gunt does that. Gunt has the best genes on the force. Gunt doesn't care. Gunt is running around in a circle. Gunt goes home. Gunt has the best genes on the force. This annoyed me quite a lot.
The ending was quite neat, but as a whole the story lacked quite a lot of oomph. It kinda nudged its way to the fore about two-thirds of the way through and spluttered out just before the end of the book. It was an interesting world and an ok idea, but as a whole it could have been so much more.
July 26, 2012
Gretchen Gerbi, an elderly woman who lives in a London apartment complex, busies herself by playing an old video game called "Civilization." Gretchen has not gotten far into the game. Her tribe is still quite primitive. She knows it is not the way to win the game, but she directs her people to farm and form settlements rather than make war on other tribes. For Gretchen, Civilization is just a way to pass the time. She never really succeeds because the game crashes when her power dims. "After rebooting, it's like a plague has wiped out half your people," she laments, "all the achievements and population growth you've made since your last save have been lost."
She sounds like any elderly lady in any city, right? Did I mention Gretchen keeps a spider with ten-inch mandible fangs and three-foot-long legs who she calls Bojangles? A spider that spins silk for her that she sells on the side? Gretchen loves the spider. She manages an apartment building in London's King's Cross (The Kross), a ghetto filled with the Unimproved lower classes. No, Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore…er, present-day London.
We are in the world of the brilliant and talented novelist Jonathan Trigell. Trigell, a British author, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2004, the Waverton Good Read Award, and the inaugural World Book Day Prize in 2008 for his first novel Boy A. Genus is his third novel. In the book, Trigell turns to speculative dystopian fiction set in a future and chilling London.
No one calls "The Kross" King's Cross anymore since it "sounds antiquated and strange," Trigell writes. There is no longer a king, you see. "Once the royal family began genetically enhancing, the utter absurdity of bloodline head of state became obvious."
Like Aldous Huxley and Margaret Atwood, Trigell explores science, medicine, biology, morality, and religion. New breakthroughs occur everyday. What was once considered science fiction or pure fantasy actually happens; this is our reality. Test-tube babies, surrogacy, living to 110 years old, gene therapy, mapping the human genome, selecting a child's eye color, and even finding out an unborn child's genetic abnormalities--these are not the stuff of fiction. They have already happened.
So Trigell's premise is not so wild then. In the not-too-distant future, scientists began "improving" people. A child could be bred for warfare with all of the genes of warriors. Likewise, a baby could be created to rule over others or to be a scientist. If a man or woman was unhappy in his or her present circumstances, don't blame the employer, him or herself, or even the government. Lay the blame on the parents for not having enough money to give their child a great future. Because money is what determines one's future lot in life. The more your parents pay for you the better your life will be, the better your education, the better your career. Sex for procreation is outlawed; when it happens, the offspring are "unimproved," ugly, and scorned. These inhabit The Kross.
The future is bleak but intriguing in Trigell's story. The government has banned religion, as it promotes terrorism. Opiates are the "opiates of the masses." An alcoholic drink called synth and drugs are very popular, as they make the Unimproved forget.
Trigell tells the story from multiple perspectives in suspenseful, alternating chapters, giving us a view into the lives of those Improved and Unimproved. A few characters stand head and shoulders above the rest of Trigell's narrators. Holman, a dwarf, particularly fascinated me. Holman is an artist with a rather shocking lineage. His mother, Adele Nicole, was a religious cultist and then a model. Adele Nicole was the last "Miss Natural" and caught the eye of a very important man.
Another especially interesting character is Crick, Holman's friend. Crick once fought in the Caliphate Wars and was injured so badly he is now blind. He gives us some history of what got England into this in the first place. Spain, Portugal, North Africa, most of France and Asia, and Arabia all became one. They became the Caliphate. Refugees from these war-torn countries fled to England. Population growth ballooned; terrorism increased exponentially; crime spiked; unemployment shot up; homeless people flooded the streets; wars killed countless English people and drained the economy. There is a lesson here, Trigell warns from between the lines. Trigell gives a voice to the disenfranchised Unimproved in his book. They are crying out to be heard.
Meanwhile, there is a serial killer on the loose in The Kross. A detective is on the trail. But a deeper, darker force may be at work. Trigell keeps the surprises coming, and the shocker at the end was one I never saw coming.
Genus is a masterful work of dystopian speculative fiction. You may not have heard of Trigell, but he definitely deserves your attention. London will be in the public eye over the next few weeks. As you watch the 2012 Olympics, think what a future dystopian London might resemble. Better yet, read Trigell's Genus for yourself. But be warned: the future is not pretty. You can't help but ask youself: "How good are your genes?"
She sounds like any elderly lady in any city, right? Did I mention Gretchen keeps a spider with ten-inch mandible fangs and three-foot-long legs who she calls Bojangles? A spider that spins silk for her that she sells on the side? Gretchen loves the spider. She manages an apartment building in London's King's Cross (The Kross), a ghetto filled with the Unimproved lower classes. No, Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore…er, present-day London.
We are in the world of the brilliant and talented novelist Jonathan Trigell. Trigell, a British author, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2004, the Waverton Good Read Award, and the inaugural World Book Day Prize in 2008 for his first novel Boy A. Genus is his third novel. In the book, Trigell turns to speculative dystopian fiction set in a future and chilling London.
No one calls "The Kross" King's Cross anymore since it "sounds antiquated and strange," Trigell writes. There is no longer a king, you see. "Once the royal family began genetically enhancing, the utter absurdity of bloodline head of state became obvious."
Like Aldous Huxley and Margaret Atwood, Trigell explores science, medicine, biology, morality, and religion. New breakthroughs occur everyday. What was once considered science fiction or pure fantasy actually happens; this is our reality. Test-tube babies, surrogacy, living to 110 years old, gene therapy, mapping the human genome, selecting a child's eye color, and even finding out an unborn child's genetic abnormalities--these are not the stuff of fiction. They have already happened.
So Trigell's premise is not so wild then. In the not-too-distant future, scientists began "improving" people. A child could be bred for warfare with all of the genes of warriors. Likewise, a baby could be created to rule over others or to be a scientist. If a man or woman was unhappy in his or her present circumstances, don't blame the employer, him or herself, or even the government. Lay the blame on the parents for not having enough money to give their child a great future. Because money is what determines one's future lot in life. The more your parents pay for you the better your life will be, the better your education, the better your career. Sex for procreation is outlawed; when it happens, the offspring are "unimproved," ugly, and scorned. These inhabit The Kross.
The future is bleak but intriguing in Trigell's story. The government has banned religion, as it promotes terrorism. Opiates are the "opiates of the masses." An alcoholic drink called synth and drugs are very popular, as they make the Unimproved forget.
Trigell tells the story from multiple perspectives in suspenseful, alternating chapters, giving us a view into the lives of those Improved and Unimproved. A few characters stand head and shoulders above the rest of Trigell's narrators. Holman, a dwarf, particularly fascinated me. Holman is an artist with a rather shocking lineage. His mother, Adele Nicole, was a religious cultist and then a model. Adele Nicole was the last "Miss Natural" and caught the eye of a very important man.
Another especially interesting character is Crick, Holman's friend. Crick once fought in the Caliphate Wars and was injured so badly he is now blind. He gives us some history of what got England into this in the first place. Spain, Portugal, North Africa, most of France and Asia, and Arabia all became one. They became the Caliphate. Refugees from these war-torn countries fled to England. Population growth ballooned; terrorism increased exponentially; crime spiked; unemployment shot up; homeless people flooded the streets; wars killed countless English people and drained the economy. There is a lesson here, Trigell warns from between the lines. Trigell gives a voice to the disenfranchised Unimproved in his book. They are crying out to be heard.
Meanwhile, there is a serial killer on the loose in The Kross. A detective is on the trail. But a deeper, darker force may be at work. Trigell keeps the surprises coming, and the shocker at the end was one I never saw coming.
Genus is a masterful work of dystopian speculative fiction. You may not have heard of Trigell, but he definitely deserves your attention. London will be in the public eye over the next few weeks. As you watch the 2012 Olympics, think what a future dystopian London might resemble. Better yet, read Trigell's Genus for yourself. But be warned: the future is not pretty. You can't help but ask youself: "How good are your genes?"
December 7, 2011
Genus is set in a BladeRunneresque future London rid of religion following a series of 'Caliphate Wars' which have lain waste to half of mainland Europe. People have ID chips in their arms, drink synthetic alcohols and children can be genetically 'enriched'.
There are a number of vividly memorable characters, the main ones being Holman Prometheus and Detective Günther Charles Bonnet. Holman, the son of a famous model (and the last ever winner of 'Miss Natural') is a deformed and dwarfish artist who struggles to get around on his "fractal, valgus legs." Detective Gunt on the other hand is "as handsome as a politician" and is the sort of policeman Jeremy Clarkson would admire. In between beating up suspects, he is investigating a series of violent deaths which lead him to something more dangerous as Genus mutates into a conspiracy thriller.
Like Trigell's powerful debut, 'Boy A', a sharp analysis of society underpins this novel. Despite being set in the future, or perhaps because of it, Genus is a blazingly good contemporary novel.
Earlier this year, that "the novel that's contemporary in the sense of being wholly 'of now' is an impossibility, if only because novels may take years to write, so the 'now' with which they begin will be defunct by the time they're finished." However, as he also pointed out, they can have "nowness" or "something which actually out-thrills the thrill of the merely contemporary. They can have immediacy."
Genus certainly has - or, by the time you read this, had - immediacy. Published in July 2011, it includes a punchy depiction of riots of the kind which London experienced a few weeks later. At which point Trigell turns up the power:
'The Kross' is King's Cross, which has become a ghetto for the genetically 'unimproved', wherein this novel is confined. It may be, as the author himself has pointed out in , that beyond The Kross, Britain might have been greatly improved - a genetically engineered utopia. Perhaps dystopia is always with us, and always has been, beneath polite society where the underclasses reside. As a character we know only as 'The Professor' muses:
Thought-provoking, surprising and written with real verve, Genus exceeded my expectations and confirmed Jonathan Trigell as a must-read author.
There are a number of vividly memorable characters, the main ones being Holman Prometheus and Detective Günther Charles Bonnet. Holman, the son of a famous model (and the last ever winner of 'Miss Natural') is a deformed and dwarfish artist who struggles to get around on his "fractal, valgus legs." Detective Gunt on the other hand is "as handsome as a politician" and is the sort of policeman Jeremy Clarkson would admire. In between beating up suspects, he is investigating a series of violent deaths which lead him to something more dangerous as Genus mutates into a conspiracy thriller.
Like Trigell's powerful debut, 'Boy A', a sharp analysis of society underpins this novel. Despite being set in the future, or perhaps because of it, Genus is a blazingly good contemporary novel.
Earlier this year, that "the novel that's contemporary in the sense of being wholly 'of now' is an impossibility, if only because novels may take years to write, so the 'now' with which they begin will be defunct by the time they're finished." However, as he also pointed out, they can have "nowness" or "something which actually out-thrills the thrill of the merely contemporary. They can have immediacy."
Genus certainly has - or, by the time you read this, had - immediacy. Published in July 2011, it includes a punchy depiction of riots of the kind which London experienced a few weeks later. At which point Trigell turns up the power:
"Gunt was in the thick of it. Gunt was dealing out turbans - bandaged heads - with his retractable steel club. Soon that was snapped, broken on scum-skull. Instead he took a baseball bat from the hand of some fat gene-lack. Smashed it into the man's own kneecap. Gunt didn't arrest anyone. Gunt didn't want slowing down. It was like truncheoning the sea. But Gunt was wading anyway. Gunt was bloody. Gunt was happy."Elsewhere,
"The blue spark of a stun gun is seen in The Kross, a jagged flash visible for an instant before it is buried in someone's neck. They drop to the floor and twitch among the sharp confetti, tinsel crystals of broken glass. It is a crystal night. Might yet be harbinger to such things as crystal nights have signalled before. The assailant is just protecting his property. Defending what is his."
'The Kross' is King's Cross, which has become a ghetto for the genetically 'unimproved', wherein this novel is confined. It may be, as the author himself has pointed out in , that beyond The Kross, Britain might have been greatly improved - a genetically engineered utopia. Perhaps dystopia is always with us, and always has been, beneath polite society where the underclasses reside. As a character we know only as 'The Professor' muses:
"meritocratic capitalism was never a fairer system, in the strictest sense, than feudalism; it only randomly selected different winners and allowed more people to win. Now that the castes are genetic - with the hopeless breeders lingering far beneath - life's winners are generally predetermined and genuinely superior, it's no fairer, but is it really any less fair? The best prosper and leave ever-fitter offspring, it was always thus, only the speed has improved."
Thought-provoking, surprising and written with real verve, Genus exceeded my expectations and confirmed Jonathan Trigell as a must-read author.
February 4, 2016
Genus seems to be one of those books that has a good setting and environment, but has very little to no plot to speak of and at times can irritate.
The world imagined here, a near future Britain where social equality is magnified due to genetic engineering the best characteristics into children (called the Improved) can only be afforded by the rich or go those who go heavily into debt. The story is set in the Kross, a sort of refugee camp in Kings Cross, London where normal humans (or Unimproved) and exiles from the Caliphate wars in Europe are corralled, is a decent dystopian setting, managing to combine future fears with today’s uncertainties of inequality. However, there is barely anything in terms of a story. There is one in the back, which you catch glimpses of, but it has no overall role to play out, or involves the main characters in any meaningful way. The selection of characters could have been good, an improved policeman who hates the unimproved, a blind war veteran, a protester for unchanged rights, a gangster where he and his brothers are all clones and a few more. The main character Holman, is an artist in the Kross, and is disabled. This adds to his injury as his father pioneered the genetic improvements, yet didn’t do any for him, and then he was born with major health problems. This could have been a good point for the story, on good will, courage etc, the honorable qualities are not engineered but part of you, the whole nature/nurture argument issue. However, I can’t think that any of the characters having any good decent qualities, especially from the characters you see most of. The policeman is a bully, and Holman is a drunk and constantly self-pitying. This might have been not so bad if they had depth or changed and became more heroic or stepped up for something, but they don’t. You discover the policeman has a secret that is never really given an explanation and Holman remains a drunk with a ‘woe is me� complex and does nothing. I don’t know if it was meant to be endearing or highlighting his disabilities, but just came off as boring and whinnying. The best line in the book was when Holman’s mother’s servant/lover says about Holman “I know you love your son, but he isn’t beautiful� and she replies “oh but he is�. I liked this as it showed a mother’s love is unconditional, and she saw something greater in him, even when he couldn’t. But there isn’t. His art isn’t seen as great or respected, which could have used to show talent isn’t an inherited or some how class derived, and he doesn’t do anything brave or smart. The protester and war veteran appear to be decent people yet are either hardly in it or do nothing. This is combined where there are no real conclusions for any of the characters or their link to the ‘greater� plot.
The author also has a problem of over the top descriptions and metaphors, which can seem a bit pretentious and distract from the story.
While the book has many good ideas within it (I particularly liked the cloned gangsters� idea, running a criminal empire in London) mostly in the idea of this future, the wafer thin plot that you only get in snippets here and there, the characters which don’t develop and the style of writing were major fails for me. It seemed to me a more ‘artsy� version of that I read a while ago, which had a similar premise. While that book wasn’t great at least it had some momentum to it, unlike this one.
This might be hard to recommend. While I’ve read much worse, beside an interesting world that some sci-fi fans might be drawn to, the rest might be harder to find someone that might enjoy it.
The world imagined here, a near future Britain where social equality is magnified due to genetic engineering the best characteristics into children (called the Improved) can only be afforded by the rich or go those who go heavily into debt. The story is set in the Kross, a sort of refugee camp in Kings Cross, London where normal humans (or Unimproved) and exiles from the Caliphate wars in Europe are corralled, is a decent dystopian setting, managing to combine future fears with today’s uncertainties of inequality. However, there is barely anything in terms of a story. There is one in the back, which you catch glimpses of, but it has no overall role to play out, or involves the main characters in any meaningful way. The selection of characters could have been good, an improved policeman who hates the unimproved, a blind war veteran, a protester for unchanged rights, a gangster where he and his brothers are all clones and a few more. The main character Holman, is an artist in the Kross, and is disabled. This adds to his injury as his father pioneered the genetic improvements, yet didn’t do any for him, and then he was born with major health problems. This could have been a good point for the story, on good will, courage etc, the honorable qualities are not engineered but part of you, the whole nature/nurture argument issue. However, I can’t think that any of the characters having any good decent qualities, especially from the characters you see most of. The policeman is a bully, and Holman is a drunk and constantly self-pitying. This might have been not so bad if they had depth or changed and became more heroic or stepped up for something, but they don’t. You discover the policeman has a secret that is never really given an explanation and Holman remains a drunk with a ‘woe is me� complex and does nothing. I don’t know if it was meant to be endearing or highlighting his disabilities, but just came off as boring and whinnying. The best line in the book was when Holman’s mother’s servant/lover says about Holman “I know you love your son, but he isn’t beautiful� and she replies “oh but he is�. I liked this as it showed a mother’s love is unconditional, and she saw something greater in him, even when he couldn’t. But there isn’t. His art isn’t seen as great or respected, which could have used to show talent isn’t an inherited or some how class derived, and he doesn’t do anything brave or smart. The protester and war veteran appear to be decent people yet are either hardly in it or do nothing. This is combined where there are no real conclusions for any of the characters or their link to the ‘greater� plot.
The author also has a problem of over the top descriptions and metaphors, which can seem a bit pretentious and distract from the story.
While the book has many good ideas within it (I particularly liked the cloned gangsters� idea, running a criminal empire in London) mostly in the idea of this future, the wafer thin plot that you only get in snippets here and there, the characters which don’t develop and the style of writing were major fails for me. It seemed to me a more ‘artsy� version of that I read a while ago, which had a similar premise. While that book wasn’t great at least it had some momentum to it, unlike this one.
This might be hard to recommend. While I’ve read much worse, beside an interesting world that some sci-fi fans might be drawn to, the rest might be harder to find someone that might enjoy it.
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January 2, 2017Less to it than meets the eye. Not enough plot--lots of terrible dystopian meaningful stuff isn't the same as a story--and it was clever but tbh it gave me the Dr Seuss feeling. (You know, how Dr Seuss does rhymes by just making up a goddamn word if he can't think of one, so it's not actually that impressive that it all rhymes.) It's not that hard to make a story read like fabulously clever allegory of racism and determination and terrorism if you set all the goalposts in the first place.
Meh, basically.
Meh, basically.
April 16, 2012
I have a video review!
December 16, 2018
What a confused jumble of a story. The premise was interesting. A near future Britain where genetic improvement can be bought and the Unimproved become a sub class.
There were several parts of the story that I thought sounded interesting and wanted to see how they played out. But then nothing further was made of them.
This is an interesting journey into "What if", but so much more could have been done with it.
There were several parts of the story that I thought sounded interesting and wanted to see how they played out. But then nothing further was made of them.
This is an interesting journey into "What if", but so much more could have been done with it.
February 18, 2021
forgot what this book was called for a moment and i thought it was called humus for a moment anyway the whole book was fine and a really interesting setting but the ending was just pure shite
January 3, 2012
I am reliably informed that Genus is Jonathan Trigell's third book, though it is the first that I have downloaded and read after receiving a Kindle for Christmas. I will confess to not having heard of Trigell before this. Quite simply, the book description sounded interesting, it was cheap, so I bought it and read it.
The aspect that drew me to the book was the simple fact that it is set in a near future dystopian society where genetic modification has become the norm. This has lead to a distinction between the handsome, skilled and healthy 'Improved' and the physically inferior 'Unimproved'. The focus of Genus is on an area of London called The Kross, which is the refuge of the Unimproved, and is a grim area that very much reflects the standing of the Unimproved within society.
The book primarily follows the life of Holman, the disfigured son of a famous beauty queen who gets through day to day life using a combination of the positive influence of painting and the negative influence of 'synth' (an alcohol substitute). His journey through the book finds him linked to a series of mysterious deaths which are being investigated by Günther Bonnet, a tenacious and often vicious police officer who has the best genes on the whole police force.
Genus fits nicely into a well established genre, though the way that Trigell deals with the narrative does show originality. Specifically, he resists the temptation to give the reader an overview of this 'too familiar for comfort' near future world, instead focusing the vast majority of his descriptions on this deprived area within London. This does significantly heighten the gritty nature of the book and is a decision that fits overall, though I certainly did feel the desire to know a little more about the wider world than was provided.
The descriptive style used by Trigell uses a lot of distinct and vivid imagery, with unusual descriptions commonplace that nonetheless provide a stark picture of what is being portrayed. At the same time, however, this style can be overwhelming when used constantly, and whilst I did like the style overall I did find myself wanting Trigell to be a bit less artistic with his language in parts in favour of being a bit more blunt.
Indeed, whilst the writing style provides an interesting and compelling opening to the book, I did think that the overall plot became a little lost in the middle of the book due to Trigell choosing to dazzle the reader with constant descriptions rather than just feeding the plot in a more systematic fashion. This is a bit of a shame, because the plot picks up again in the final quarter and brings the book to a well paced and thoroughly satisfying close. As such Genus is a book that I would recommend to those who like the genre, as it provides a gritty and effective background world with a plot that ultimately proves itself to be hard hitting and satisfying. The book just stalls somewhat in the middle, but providing you're willing to dig through those sections, you'll not regret reading this one through to the end.
The aspect that drew me to the book was the simple fact that it is set in a near future dystopian society where genetic modification has become the norm. This has lead to a distinction between the handsome, skilled and healthy 'Improved' and the physically inferior 'Unimproved'. The focus of Genus is on an area of London called The Kross, which is the refuge of the Unimproved, and is a grim area that very much reflects the standing of the Unimproved within society.
The book primarily follows the life of Holman, the disfigured son of a famous beauty queen who gets through day to day life using a combination of the positive influence of painting and the negative influence of 'synth' (an alcohol substitute). His journey through the book finds him linked to a series of mysterious deaths which are being investigated by Günther Bonnet, a tenacious and often vicious police officer who has the best genes on the whole police force.
Genus fits nicely into a well established genre, though the way that Trigell deals with the narrative does show originality. Specifically, he resists the temptation to give the reader an overview of this 'too familiar for comfort' near future world, instead focusing the vast majority of his descriptions on this deprived area within London. This does significantly heighten the gritty nature of the book and is a decision that fits overall, though I certainly did feel the desire to know a little more about the wider world than was provided.
The descriptive style used by Trigell uses a lot of distinct and vivid imagery, with unusual descriptions commonplace that nonetheless provide a stark picture of what is being portrayed. At the same time, however, this style can be overwhelming when used constantly, and whilst I did like the style overall I did find myself wanting Trigell to be a bit less artistic with his language in parts in favour of being a bit more blunt.
Indeed, whilst the writing style provides an interesting and compelling opening to the book, I did think that the overall plot became a little lost in the middle of the book due to Trigell choosing to dazzle the reader with constant descriptions rather than just feeding the plot in a more systematic fashion. This is a bit of a shame, because the plot picks up again in the final quarter and brings the book to a well paced and thoroughly satisfying close. As such Genus is a book that I would recommend to those who like the genre, as it provides a gritty and effective background world with a plot that ultimately proves itself to be hard hitting and satisfying. The book just stalls somewhat in the middle, but providing you're willing to dig through those sections, you'll not regret reading this one through to the end.
September 2, 2012
This review was originally posted on
I've heard a lot of good things about Boy A (which was Trigell's first novel) so when Genus was sent to for review I thought why not? I've not actually read Boy A so I don't know if it's worth of the praise it has received but knowing about it probably did heighten my expectations a little when it came to reading Genus.
At first I really can't say I was much of a fan. The chapters kept jumping from character to character- sometimes with a heading to say which character's point of view you were seeing, but not always, which made things a little confusing. Plus at first there seemed to be few links between the characters which felt like I was reading lots of little stories based in the same world, this just added to the confusion. However as the story progressed the stories seemed to intertwine which reduced the confusion- in fact by the time all was revealed the only confusion I felt was the confusion I imagine the reader was meant to feel. That is the confusion about the murderer.
Tone wise Genus reminded me quite a lot of Super Sad True Love Story, which wasn't really a bonus because I had been rather disappointed by that one, so it didn't really build good associations. There were certain parallels in the novels too. Both set in a dystopian future which have a certain basis in reality that suggests that everything might come true.
Genus definitely has more meat to it though. The future presented is more scary. The idea of being a lower class just because you hadn't been a designed child. The vicious circle of it all, the Unimproved couldn't get the good jobs, so they couldn't pay for their children to be Improved so if they had children they were condemning them to the same fate. The laws that were meant to protect the Unimproved just made it easier to know who was Unimproved and therefore discriminate against them.
We see this future through different eyes. Some Improved, some not. There's a suggestion that even life for the Improved is not fantastic, but that nobody would want to be Unimproved, if if they were lucky when it came to natural gene selection. Mainly we follow Holman, an Unimproved of the most obvious type. A midget with legs which do not work as they should, and who is old for his age. In ways he is lucky, he has a natural talent for art which may one day get him out of The Kross, born to an Unimproved, but rich and beautiful mother who is happy to support him. But Holman seems entangled in the murders, is he next to go, or could he even be the murderer?
By the end I just wanted to find everything out, but to be honest most of the time I found I just wanted the story to be over already, it was only in about the last 30% of the book that I started actually getting interested, and the last 10% was pretty riveting. If you're in for the long haul you may enjoy Genus, but I didn't find the last section really made up for the rest.
I've heard a lot of good things about Boy A (which was Trigell's first novel) so when Genus was sent to for review I thought why not? I've not actually read Boy A so I don't know if it's worth of the praise it has received but knowing about it probably did heighten my expectations a little when it came to reading Genus.
At first I really can't say I was much of a fan. The chapters kept jumping from character to character- sometimes with a heading to say which character's point of view you were seeing, but not always, which made things a little confusing. Plus at first there seemed to be few links between the characters which felt like I was reading lots of little stories based in the same world, this just added to the confusion. However as the story progressed the stories seemed to intertwine which reduced the confusion- in fact by the time all was revealed the only confusion I felt was the confusion I imagine the reader was meant to feel. That is the confusion about the murderer.
Tone wise Genus reminded me quite a lot of Super Sad True Love Story, which wasn't really a bonus because I had been rather disappointed by that one, so it didn't really build good associations. There were certain parallels in the novels too. Both set in a dystopian future which have a certain basis in reality that suggests that everything might come true.
Genus definitely has more meat to it though. The future presented is more scary. The idea of being a lower class just because you hadn't been a designed child. The vicious circle of it all, the Unimproved couldn't get the good jobs, so they couldn't pay for their children to be Improved so if they had children they were condemning them to the same fate. The laws that were meant to protect the Unimproved just made it easier to know who was Unimproved and therefore discriminate against them.
We see this future through different eyes. Some Improved, some not. There's a suggestion that even life for the Improved is not fantastic, but that nobody would want to be Unimproved, if if they were lucky when it came to natural gene selection. Mainly we follow Holman, an Unimproved of the most obvious type. A midget with legs which do not work as they should, and who is old for his age. In ways he is lucky, he has a natural talent for art which may one day get him out of The Kross, born to an Unimproved, but rich and beautiful mother who is happy to support him. But Holman seems entangled in the murders, is he next to go, or could he even be the murderer?
By the end I just wanted to find everything out, but to be honest most of the time I found I just wanted the story to be over already, it was only in about the last 30% of the book that I started actually getting interested, and the last 10% was pretty riveting. If you're in for the long haul you may enjoy Genus, but I didn't find the last section really made up for the rest.
August 9, 2012
We follow misshapen Holman, a poor artist living in The Kross where he scrapes a living (mainly by begging from his very rich and beautiful mother, a former model). His life isn’t easy and it doesn’t help that people start dying around him. Not just anyone, but people he knows and deals with regularly. His artwork gets destroyed in a riot and he relies on synth (an alcoholic drink) to get through the day. Soon he’s a suspect in the murder cases and he leaves home to hide at a friend’s house.
We also follow a policeman called Gunt, who is the most despicable person you can think of, but who does manage to solve the murder mystery. He is the most beautiful person you can imagine, and obviously an Improved person, on a quest to arrest and put away as many Unimproved as he can manage.
This book is very well written, definitely literary fiction, but not in a forced, difficult way. It’s very readable but you have to keep your mind with it. Skim one or two sentences and you may have missed something important.
I liked the way each chapter was about a certain person. Holman featured most, but other characters, such as Gunt, as well as minor characters (who had maybe just one chapter each) were featured. At first it is not quite clear how they fit in the story, but in the end, it all comes together.
Sometimes there are chapters in which each character is only briefly mentioned, not always by name. For instance, the text refers to a “heavy-set man with a pale upper lip�, and you think “who’s that?�, then you read that he has a dog, and you think, “Ah, that’s Quigley, the man with the mustache who was on the run. He must have shaved it off to be less obvious.� That makes the book extra fun to read, these little puzzles, that are not hard to solve, but take a little bit of thinking.
The Kross is where most of the book takes part and is almost a character itself. It’s a bleak place, rife with vandalism and dirt everywhere. This is very much an urban novel.
This story in a future England discusses beauty and class struggles (where the lower class are the genetically unimproved) and is scarily believable. A wonderful read for anyone who loves dystopian-type literature.
We also follow a policeman called Gunt, who is the most despicable person you can think of, but who does manage to solve the murder mystery. He is the most beautiful person you can imagine, and obviously an Improved person, on a quest to arrest and put away as many Unimproved as he can manage.
This book is very well written, definitely literary fiction, but not in a forced, difficult way. It’s very readable but you have to keep your mind with it. Skim one or two sentences and you may have missed something important.
I liked the way each chapter was about a certain person. Holman featured most, but other characters, such as Gunt, as well as minor characters (who had maybe just one chapter each) were featured. At first it is not quite clear how they fit in the story, but in the end, it all comes together.
Sometimes there are chapters in which each character is only briefly mentioned, not always by name. For instance, the text refers to a “heavy-set man with a pale upper lip�, and you think “who’s that?�, then you read that he has a dog, and you think, “Ah, that’s Quigley, the man with the mustache who was on the run. He must have shaved it off to be less obvious.� That makes the book extra fun to read, these little puzzles, that are not hard to solve, but take a little bit of thinking.
The Kross is where most of the book takes part and is almost a character itself. It’s a bleak place, rife with vandalism and dirt everywhere. This is very much an urban novel.
This story in a future England discusses beauty and class struggles (where the lower class are the genetically unimproved) and is scarily believable. A wonderful read for anyone who loves dystopian-type literature.
September 9, 2011
Jonathan Trigell is best known for Boy A, his debut about a young offender trying to reintegrate into society after spending most of his life in prison. For his third novel, however, Trigell has turned his hand to science fiction. In a future London stifled by a series of wars and unchanging government, advances in genetic technology mean that perfection is available to anyone who can afford it. Those who can’t, the ‘Unimproved�, end up somewhere like The Kross (King’s Cross as was). Genus follows a number of characters living in and around The Kross, mostly notably Holman, the disfigured son of the last natural beauty queen; and Günther Bonnet, the cop with ‘the best set of genes on the force�, who has a series of murders to investigate.
The actual plot of Genus, the mystery around those deaths, is relatively straightforward, and not the novel’s main point of interest. Where the book rerally succeeds is the way Trigell depicts his future, world; our perspective is firmly rooted on the inside, to an almost suffocating degree. We barely see anything of life outside The Kross, never mind outside of London; and it’s difficult to get a real handle on how this world developed and how it operates � we understand to an extent, yes, but a full picture of the world is as distant from us as it is from the inhabitants of The Kross; they just have to get on as best they can, and that’s what Trigell makes his readers do. There’s also some nicely effective prose in Genus; I wasn’t too keen on the use of alliteration, but the jerky, rapid-fire sentences of Günther’s scenes do much to convey his character, and Trigell frequently juxtaposes different senses of the same word or phrase to great effect. I’ll certainly be reading more of Trigell’s work after this.
The actual plot of Genus, the mystery around those deaths, is relatively straightforward, and not the novel’s main point of interest. Where the book rerally succeeds is the way Trigell depicts his future, world; our perspective is firmly rooted on the inside, to an almost suffocating degree. We barely see anything of life outside The Kross, never mind outside of London; and it’s difficult to get a real handle on how this world developed and how it operates � we understand to an extent, yes, but a full picture of the world is as distant from us as it is from the inhabitants of The Kross; they just have to get on as best they can, and that’s what Trigell makes his readers do. There’s also some nicely effective prose in Genus; I wasn’t too keen on the use of alliteration, but the jerky, rapid-fire sentences of Günther’s scenes do much to convey his character, and Trigell frequently juxtaposes different senses of the same word or phrase to great effect. I’ll certainly be reading more of Trigell’s work after this.
September 6, 2016
Genus appealed to me because it's set in futuristic dystopian London, specifically in King's Cross � now known simply as The Kross. Many of you may associate King's Cross with Harry Potter and The Hogwarts Express, but The Kross is anything but magical. It's dirty, dull, and impoverished; a reluctant home to The Unimproved. You see, in Trigell's world, physical perfection is easy to attain � for the rich. For a price, your children can be free of disability and disease through genetic selection.
Genus is a vivid and frightening view of London. It's terrifying not because it presents a world where the human body can be manipulated as easily as anything else, but because, as a result, it creates an even larger divide between the rich and the poor. If we already live in a world where meritocracy does not exist, it exists even less in The Kross.
Genus was unfortunately unable to captivate me completely, not due to the gritty plot, which I rather enjoyed, but due to the writing style. It leans more towards literary fiction rather than the commercial science fiction I'm used to. I tend to assume that dystopian novels tend to focus more on the plot, but Genus instead zooms in on the tiny details surrounding its characters, such as Holman, an old man with an incurable (for him) ailment that means he is unable to walk properly and is permanently in excruciating pain. It was not quite as snappy as I had hoped, being more contemplative and watchful, and I was impatient to know where it was going.
If you're tired of reading dystopian novels that all sound the same, Genus may be one to pick up. It offers a fresh view of society that isn't completely far from reality and shows what can happen when perfection comes at a costly price.
Thank you Corsair for providing this book for review!
Genus is a vivid and frightening view of London. It's terrifying not because it presents a world where the human body can be manipulated as easily as anything else, but because, as a result, it creates an even larger divide between the rich and the poor. If we already live in a world where meritocracy does not exist, it exists even less in The Kross.
Genus was unfortunately unable to captivate me completely, not due to the gritty plot, which I rather enjoyed, but due to the writing style. It leans more towards literary fiction rather than the commercial science fiction I'm used to. I tend to assume that dystopian novels tend to focus more on the plot, but Genus instead zooms in on the tiny details surrounding its characters, such as Holman, an old man with an incurable (for him) ailment that means he is unable to walk properly and is permanently in excruciating pain. It was not quite as snappy as I had hoped, being more contemplative and watchful, and I was impatient to know where it was going.
If you're tired of reading dystopian novels that all sound the same, Genus may be one to pick up. It offers a fresh view of society that isn't completely far from reality and shows what can happen when perfection comes at a costly price.
Thank you Corsair for providing this book for review!
August 13, 2012
I'm a sucker for a fresh take on the future distopian view and I am also a fan of this author after his debut, Boy A, so I was hoping for great things from this book. It delivered enjoyment and frustration in equal measure.
In Trigell's future world, society has faced two critical battles; a military conflict pitting Islam against Christianity in the Caliphate wars, and the social battle for genetic domination by the wealthy. The author's gift is that he allows us to discover the impact of these changes through the experiences of his characters, bringing the whole to life with brilliant, original metaphor and description. But even with all this going for it, I couldn't quite ratchet up my love to 4 stars.
There is no amount of elegant writing that for me, substitutes for story and structure. Trigell spends most of the book jumping between character POV following a series of apparent killings in the Kross - the slums of the genetically unimproved. Some we quickly figure out are key characters but others are with us for only one brief insight into their way of life in the Kross, and whilst I was initially happy to receive these snippets I was becoming impatient. Where was this all going, and was there anyone in this book I cared about?
Sure enough, it all comes together and the big plot reveal is intelligent and well crafted, but it's almost the end of the book before things get interesting and to be honest, I nearly didn't make it.
In Trigell's future world, society has faced two critical battles; a military conflict pitting Islam against Christianity in the Caliphate wars, and the social battle for genetic domination by the wealthy. The author's gift is that he allows us to discover the impact of these changes through the experiences of his characters, bringing the whole to life with brilliant, original metaphor and description. But even with all this going for it, I couldn't quite ratchet up my love to 4 stars.
There is no amount of elegant writing that for me, substitutes for story and structure. Trigell spends most of the book jumping between character POV following a series of apparent killings in the Kross - the slums of the genetically unimproved. Some we quickly figure out are key characters but others are with us for only one brief insight into their way of life in the Kross, and whilst I was initially happy to receive these snippets I was becoming impatient. Where was this all going, and was there anyone in this book I cared about?
Sure enough, it all comes together and the big plot reveal is intelligent and well crafted, but it's almost the end of the book before things get interesting and to be honest, I nearly didn't make it.
January 17, 2016
I purchased this on the strength of having been blown away by Jonathan Trigell's novel 'Boy A' (which I heartily recommend) but realised only thirty or so pages into this one that it would be a very different book indeed.
The aforementioned 'Boy A' was an affecting and challenging tale of a young offender's attempts to rebuild his life after prison. This, in contrast, is a fantastical tale of a dystopian future where social class is determined greatly by genetic purity and associated aspects, and it's the sort of thing I wouldn't have hesitated to read twenty years ago, but which I have read very little of since my teenage years.
Nevertheless, it was very good. The quality and cleverness of the writing shine through - some excellent turns of phrase, witty comparisons, stunningly evocative and yet odd descriptions. Told from several different viewpoints, these are painted with impressive clarity and individuality. It's an intelligent book too - having important thought-provoking things to say about science (esp. genetic engineering) as well as about sociology and politics - making several direct reflections on important recent historical events in a damned clever manner.
I only give it four, despite having liked it a lot, because it wasn't really my thing insofar as science fiction as a genre - hence at times I got lost because I was a little impatient to get through sections.
The aforementioned 'Boy A' was an affecting and challenging tale of a young offender's attempts to rebuild his life after prison. This, in contrast, is a fantastical tale of a dystopian future where social class is determined greatly by genetic purity and associated aspects, and it's the sort of thing I wouldn't have hesitated to read twenty years ago, but which I have read very little of since my teenage years.
Nevertheless, it was very good. The quality and cleverness of the writing shine through - some excellent turns of phrase, witty comparisons, stunningly evocative and yet odd descriptions. Told from several different viewpoints, these are painted with impressive clarity and individuality. It's an intelligent book too - having important thought-provoking things to say about science (esp. genetic engineering) as well as about sociology and politics - making several direct reflections on important recent historical events in a damned clever manner.
I only give it four, despite having liked it a lot, because it wasn't really my thing insofar as science fiction as a genre - hence at times I got lost because I was a little impatient to get through sections.
September 18, 2012
A pretty entertaining dark-future novel, with elements of Gattaca and Brave New World, but all set a bit closer to the present (and very close to home). The book is one of those written from the perspectives of different characters, which works well in this type of story to give you an understanding of how different parts of society are affected by the main premise.... That voluntary genetic modification allows the rich to build designer children, while the poor are left with 'unimproved' children, who become an underclass in a new caste system, subject to prejudice and with parallels in modern societies where we're used to seeing such divides based upon race and/or religion. Really entertaining to read, with some good ideas, but with a certain inevitability about the progression of the plot and an ending that isn't altogether unexpected.
February 19, 2015
This book was a gift, something I may possibly have chosen myself but it has not made me keen to read any of his other books.
The story itself isn't bad, some of the characters are interesting (though not interesting enough to care what happened to them) and the landscape they inhabit is well described. I didn't like the jumping around from one character to another, I found it jarring. I hated the repetitive phrases especially with regard to the asshole cop, who was relentlessly unlikable. There was no real ending, it just stopped after a collection of very short pieces about the various characters in the aftermath of an incident that really should have had more of a build up.
Not a book I would recommend.
The story itself isn't bad, some of the characters are interesting (though not interesting enough to care what happened to them) and the landscape they inhabit is well described. I didn't like the jumping around from one character to another, I found it jarring. I hated the repetitive phrases especially with regard to the asshole cop, who was relentlessly unlikable. There was no real ending, it just stopped after a collection of very short pieces about the various characters in the aftermath of an incident that really should have had more of a build up.
Not a book I would recommend.
October 20, 2012
A gritty, stark and pretty bleak look at the have and have nots of the future. It's a decent plot and interestingly written, but I struggled to get into it and it was only towards the end that I started to warm to the characters. Good in bits, but boring in others, at times I felt like skipping on a few pages as the book meandered on. The plot definitely loses it's way in the middle, and although it gets interesting again if you stick with it, considering the rave reviews, I ultimately felt a bit disappointed.
January 6, 2015
Well I was really looking forward to reading this after a lot of positive reviews but from some reason it just failed to click with me, I enjoyed it could see where the author was coming from but for me it just failed to work the way I wanted it to.
Definitely one for you to pick up and make up your own mind on but for me its a definite good but could have been better.
Definitely one for you to pick up and make up your own mind on but for me its a definite good but could have been better.
October 6, 2012
Highly enjoyable - not new ground, exactly, but well-written and nicely paced, with enough strangeness and distance to make it worthwhile. Beautifully, and credibly, pessimistic about humanity's innate need to grind the downtrodden still further as a means of self-definition. Very Warren Ellis-esque (and that's a good thing), although without quite the same ascerbic edge (not so much).
February 18, 2016
I actually read this twice, as I'd forgotten I'd read it the first time. That says the concept is strong, and the fact I continued says it has some solid writing and a good mystery "hook". However in the 2nd half you struggle to sympathise with the characters and the world spirals from plausible to a WWII similitude which is painfully obvious. Promising but fails to deliver something memorable
August 20, 2011
Really enjoyed it. Especially as some parts seem spookily-relevant with relation to recent riots in the UK. Will re-read it post-dissertation as I'm not 100% my brain's still functioning properly at the moment :)
July 11, 2012
Not exactly cheery but thought-provoking and beautifully written.
April 24, 2012
I've just finished reading this on my Amazon Reader, brilliant book, really mental and what an amazing first book an his MA thesis by the way for an author to watch out for, fab! I loved it.
July 26, 2012
I'd pair this dystopian London story with
August 27, 2012
Annoying style - excessive simile.
Had to drop it half way through.
Unable to care about any of the characters.
Had to drop it half way through.
Unable to care about any of the characters.
November 21, 2012
I actually gave up on this novel and returned it to the library.
February 1, 2013
Interesting premise, and as it progresses, you discover how the different characters are related to each other. Yet, it feels like the same point/theme over and over again.
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