![]() ![]() This is an excellent review, although I disagreed with it a bit in the comments (especially with the idea of the 1980s as a cliché), and it is interesting to look back on the discussion. I read this in 2008 in response to Niall Harrison’s review on the Vector editorial blog, which was then called ‘Torque Control’. In 1995, a revised paperback version was published. On original publication, the novel was shortlisted for both the BSFA and Clarke Awards. Along with Jones’s Bold as Love series (2001-2014), Kairos shatters the illusion of the mirror world we inhabit by showing how what is relentlessly portrayed by the media and the politicians of the two main parties as sober, bland, realistic, normal life is in fact nothing but a relentlessly vile and hostile assault on any attempt to establish a good society, or even any form of community, rooted in love, freedom, and collective organisation. Not only does it brilliantly capture the counter-revolutionary mayhem of Thatcherism, but it also uncannily anticipates the corporate neoliberal horror that followed it. ![]() For me this is not only one of the best British SF novels written in the last 50 years, but also one of the best of all contemporary British novels. ![]() First published in 1988 by Unwin Hyman, Kairos was reissued in the Gollancz SF Masterworks series in 2021 in a freshly revised edition with an (excellent) introduction by the author. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |