Sunday, September 08, 2013

Top 10 claustrophobic parallel worlds in fiction

Fletcher Moss won the (London) Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition 2012, with his swashbuckling novel The Poison Boy.

He works as an assistant head teacher at a school in Greater Manchester, having previously worked as a classroom teacher, shelf-stacker and van driver in France and Spain.

For the Guardian, Moss named his ten favorite claustrophobic parallel worlds to get lost in, including:
Predator's Gold by Philip Reeve

Reeve sets much of the action in this novel – the second of the Mortal Engines Quartet – on the city of Anchorage as it rumbles Westward across the ice towards North America. It's an eerie and half-abandoned traction-city ruled by Freya Rasmussen, an alluring young margravine intent on driving her citizens towards this promised land. There is, of course, trouble ahead. Anyone unfamiliar with Reeve's work (in which case, where've you been? Get to the back of the class!) should start with Mortal Engines, the book that precedes this one.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue