Catherine Webb, writing as Claire North, looks at the history of the twentieth century through the the character of Harry August. In an introspective tone, narrator Peter Kenny recounts the stories of August’s many lives, 15 to be exact, each one beginning with his birth in 1919 to the same parents. The book opens with his eleventh life, during which he learns that the world is prematurely coming to an end. So he sets out to discover answers to life’s important questions over the course of his next four lives. Kenny’s narration creates an atmosphere of intimacy with the listener. He sounds earnest without being somber and conveys August’s enthusiasm for exploring questions about the meaning of life without sounding ponderous. J.E.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2015 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Sarah Pinborough’s new book is The Death House, a tense supernatural mystery involving the residents of the titular institution. Believed to be stricken with a fatal illness, they are studied by the Matron and her nurses, and forced to find a new way to live under the constant specter of death. We asked Sarah to tell […]
Russian Doll, the new Netflix series starring and co-written by Natasha Lyonne, is a pretty remarkable achievement: a weird, funny, and tragic blend of drama and science fiction not incidentally written and directed entirely by women, that manages to be original even as it nods to a long list of influences. [Spoiler alert! Though we […]
84K begins in medias res: Neila is on the towpath of a canal on the outskirts of London, trying to call an ambulance. A man called Theo Miller lies beaten and bloodied, a severe head wound sending him in and out of coherence. The ambulance won’t come—Neila doesn’t have insurance and doesn’t know if Theo […]
In writing her new novel Paris Adrift (out this week from Solaris), author E.J. Swift wanted to honor the past without repeating it—always a tricky proposition when we’re talking time travel, that most familiar of sci-fi tropes. She joins us today to talk about how she put her own spin on futzing about with the […]
We all have a wishlist of things we’d do if time travel were possible. It’s a common human fantasy: who wouldn’t want the ability to wander through history, and, if you’re exceptionally careful about it, even change it? But with great temporal power comes great temporal responsibility—and the huge potential for big mistakes. Paradox-level mistakes. Massive, existence-wiping mistakes. Over the years, science fiction […]