Marcel Theroux conveys in this novel a sense of how precarious and precious our technologically maintained liberal democracies are. Makepeace is the last inhabitant of a failed settlement in northern Siberia, established before war brought the civilised world crashing down. In conversation with a fellow inmate at a slave camp, she remarks that it only takes three days for hunger and desperation to overcome all civilised instinct in a person. Her friend smiles and replies that she has a bleak view of human nature – in his experience, it's closer to four days.
The life of any character in such a world is likely to be short, and no sooner have you got to know a character than you start fearing for their safety. Theroux is a master storyteller, and the narrative is as full of surprises as it is of murders. And in Makepeace he's created the moral centre of a heartless world: hardened by her experiences she nevertheless remains capable of great courage, friendship and loyalty, so that the bleak vision of this novel contains a glint of consolation.
Marcel Theroux
Blow To The Heart
$22.95 – Paperback book / Faber
The violent death of Daisy's husband leaves her a widow at 32, obliterating everything she has lived for. As she struggles to build a new life, a chance encounter with her husband's killer becomes the starting point of a... Buy or find out more →
Far North
$29.99 – Hardcover book / Faber
Marcel Theroux conveys in this novel a sense of how precarious and precious our technologically maintained liberal democracies are. Makepeace is the last inhabitant of a failed settlement in northern Siberia, established... Buy or find out more →
Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction 2010 Shortlist
Retribution Falls
$32.99 – Trade paperback / Victor Gollancz
Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of layabouts. An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily arme... Buy or find out more →
Far North
$29.99 – Hardcover book / Faber
Marcel Theroux conveys in this novel a sense of how precarious and precious our technologically maintained liberal democracies are. Makepeace is the last inhabitant of a failed settlement in northern Siberia, established... Buy or find out more →
Spirit
$22.99 – Paperback book / Orion
Bibi (meaning princess) is the sole survivor of a massacre. Lady Nef, the General's wife, stops the General taking her as a concubine, winning Bibi's eternal and passionate devotion. Years later, a diplomatic mission to ... Buy or find out more →
The City And The City
$18.99 – Paperback book / Pan Macmillan
When the body of a murdered woman is found in the extraordinary, decaying city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks like a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad.
But as he pro... Buy or find out more →
Yellow Blue Tibia
$35.00 – Trade paperback / Victor Gollancz
Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated, Stalin gathers together half a dozen of the top Soviet science fiction authors. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few years away and equally convinced that the Sovi... Buy or find out more →
Galileo's Dream
$32.99 – Trade paperback / Harper Collins
Late Renaissance Italy still abounds in alchemy and Aristotle, yet it trembles on the brink of the modern world. Galileo′s new telescope encapsulates all the contradictions of this emerging reality.
Then one night a st... Buy or find out more →
National Book Awards 2009 (Fiction Finalists)
Far North
$29.99 – Hardcover book / Faber
Marcel Theroux conveys in this novel a sense of how precarious and precious our technologically maintained liberal democracies are. Makepeace is the last inhabitant of a failed settlement in northern Siberia, established... Buy or find out more →
Lark and Termite
$47.95 – Hardcover book / Alfred A Knopf
A rich, wonderfully alive novel from one of our most admired and best-loved writers, her first book in nine years. Lark and Termite is set during the 1950s in West Virginia and Korea. It is a story of the power of loss a... Buy or find out more →
Let The Great World Spin
$32.95$14.95 – Trade paperback / Bloomsbury
Winner of the 2009 National Book Award for Fiction.
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterio... Buy or find out more →
American Salvage
$30.95 – Paperback book / Wayne State Univ Pr
New from award-winning Michigan writer Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage is rich with local color and peopled with rural characters who love and hate extravagantly. They know how to fix cars and washing machines, how ... Buy or find out more →
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
$35.00 – Hardcover book / Allen & Unwin
The linked stories in In Other Rooms, Other Wonders illuminate a place and a people as they describe the overlapping worlds of an extended Pakistani landowning family: the servants and dependents in Mr K.K. Harouni's ove... Buy or find out more →