![]() ![]() ![]() Beckett is superb at undercutting reader assumptions with a casual line of dialogue or acute psychological observation: the book reads like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness reimagined by JG Ballard.Īnother dystopia featuring a near-future England governed by manipulative rightwing politicians arrives in the shape of NJ Crosskey’s hard-hitting debut Poster Boy (Legend, £8.99). Ronson is tasked with bringing an end to the killings, but his interactions with the residents, tourists and scientists – who have their own shady reasons for visiting the Delta – lead to a Kafkaesque rite of passage in which he must come to terms with his dark inner self. Creole settlers have been killing the native lifeforms known as duendes, humanoid creatures who have a destabilising psychic effect on the minds of observers. ![]() With its own flora and fauna and a zone that induces amnesia, the Delta is unlike anywhere else on Earth: visitors find themselves stranded in an affectless psychological Sargasso. ![]() Repressed London policeman Ben Ronson, a specialist in “culturally sanctioned crimes”, is sent by the UN to the strange realm of the Submundo Delta, in South America. Chris Beckett brings literary flair and sociological insight to his award-winning science fiction, and his seventh novel, Beneath the World, a Sea (Corvus, £17.99), is no exception. ![]()
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