The strange and suspenseful dystopian classic about an ordinary woman whose weekend away in the Austrian mountains takes an inexplicable and sinister turn - and becomes a fight for survival.
**FOR FANS OF I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN**
A woman takes a holiday in the Austrian mountains, spending a few days with her cousin and his wife in their hunting lodge. When the couple fails to return from a walk, the woman sets off to look for them. But her journey reaches a sinister and inexplicable dead end. She discovers only a transparent wall behind which there seems to be no life. Trapped alone behind the mysterious wall she begins the arduous work of survival.
This is at once a simple account of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one's name, and simultaneously a disturbing dissection of the place of human beings in the natural world.
'One of the most beautiful and most harrowing books I’ve ever read, as well as one of the best' Susan Choi
'Every joint and sinew of the story is restless with a sense of threat' London Review of Books
'Brilliant in its sustainment of dread, in its peeling away of old layers of reality to expose a raw way of seeing and feeling.' Nicole Krauss
TRANSLATED BY SHAUN WHITESIDE
VINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.
AN ENDLESS VOID. A POWERFUL ANOMALY. A QUEST FOR REVENGE.
When The Sinker was a child, her home was destroyed by The Construct, a floating machine that consumes all in its path. To survive, she fled into the void, a seemingly infinite nothingness where few dare venture, filled with floating, vertically stacked rocks. Some of these rocks are giant magnets, some burn with eternal flame and some are influenced by the presence of seemingly magical objects – anomalies that defy physical laws.
For half a lifetime, The Sinker has wandered the void on a quest for knowledge, for understanding and for peace. But when rumours reach her that The Construct is near again, she knows fate has come full circle. With the help of Crooked Arm – the heir to a shattered throne, who happens to possess the most powerful anomaly of all – the two of them set out on a mission to end the tyranny of The Construct forever.
From one of the visionary writers of the Netflix series The OA comes a reality unlike anything you have ever encountered before.
If you're ready, enter the void...
Lees meerFROM THE PULITZER PRIZE WINNER, READ THE STORY THAT INSPIRED THE BLOCKBUSTER FILM, OUT NOW!
'Astoundingly great. Whalefall is, quite simply, a beautiful novel-a must-read story' - GILLIAN FLYNN
'A crazy, and crazily enjoyable, beat-the-clock adventure story' - NEW YORK TIMES
'Fantastically gripping . . . Smart, surreal, and powerfully humane' - OWEN KING
'There is nothing else quite like Whalefall' - NEW SCIENTIST
The Martian meets 127 Hours in this powerfully humane thriller about a scuba diver who's been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.
Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool's errand: to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. He knows it's a long shot, but Jay feels it's the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad's death the previous year.
The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid's tentacles and drawn into the whale's mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out - one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.
Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an 'astoundingly great' (Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life, only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.
All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.
Nebula Award, Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist and Hugo and Locus Award winner Ray Nayler returns with a gripping technological thriller.
'A fast-paced dystopian thriller' - SFX Magazine
'First-rate science fiction' - Cory Doctorow
'As much a novel of ideas as it is a techno-thriller . . . A more erudite and emotionally engaging Philip K Dick' - Irish Times
In a familiar yet different Europe governed by AI, life is more efficient, objective, and peaceful. Yet all is not as it seems. Meanwhile, at Europe's eastern edge, the Federation endures under the rule of a President who has preserved his power by transferring his consciousness from body to body.
As both worlds begin to crumble, Lilia, a Federation scientist, discovers a way to slip the nets of surveillance and alter the balance of power. On the run, she becomes the reluctant centre of a struggle between resistance and control. Yet the systems and people surrounding her may already be beyond redemption. Is there any way to put humanity's future back in its own hands?