Imagine a nation of ancient rival kingdoms in the aftermath of a distant yet disastrous war … Imagine its parliament under the sway of a populist party supported by big business and neo-fascist militias … Imagine an economy rife with inequalities and corruption, a society atomised by ideology and social media … Imagine a thriving port city built on a tidal river near a coastline steeped in myths and legends … Imagine a group of people negotiating their lives under the shadow of a murderous conspiracy, whose destinies are connected in ways they cannot know … Welcome to V, the city by the sea.
The City by the Sea
256 pp. ISBN 978-1-906900-59-5
FICTION
‘In precise and glittering prose, Alistair McNaught constructs a portrait of a city that feels both familiar and deeply strange. His cast of characters, grappling with various forms of desire and loneliness, enact a series of interlinked liaisons as they move around the labyrinthine streets, candlelit bars, apartment blocks and luxury villas. The novel exerts a hypnotic hold, the kaleidoscope slowly shifting until it resolves into a climax both inevitable and shocking.’
Jill Hopper
‘A striking and flavoursome Dystopian SF novel that provides a welcome, astringent literary alternative to genre shelves saturated with tired Space Opera and candyfloss Romantasy.’
Stephen E. Andrews
‘Set in a land that is somehow Eastern Europe and Britain both, this is a book full of mystery, misery, loneliness, desire and fear. A world like our own. The book draws you in with strong characters and a strangely luminous prose, and then steadily tightens the knot of suspense.’
Jonathan Neale
‘We are all mice in a maze, or figures in a model of reality, McNaught seems to be saying. … Through the chilling thought experiment of his novel, the author asks us to reflect upon our own imagined lives and consensus reality, and to wake up from the nightmare of the present.’
BFS Journal
