Review: Down among the dystopias

For a summer read, the Earth’s distant future seems an ideal place to
get away from it all. Gwyneth Jones’ North Wind (Gollancz, pp 281, £15.99)
depicts a world torn apart by war between men and women, or rather ‘Men’
and ‘Women’, for the protagonists feel loyalty towards gender rather than
biological identity. A confusion of loyalty to the occupying aliens creates
a third force longing to get off Earth, escaping the slums and schisms.
Uncomfortably close to the poor backstreets of present-day cities – here,
the decaying malls are full of cheap VR games, constant hustling to trade
and survive – Jones creates a complex and gritty version of the quest novel.
Ian Banks’ Feersum Enjinn (Orbit, pp 279, £15.99) makes the reader
work: the title and one character deal with words phonetically and forcefully,
a slight hurdle to the speed-reader grabbing at the essence of the story.
Again, a future Earth lies in rubble and decay, collapsing megatowers
shake the ground, while Count Sessine tries to lose his eighth and last
life in a war between kings and engineers. Banks keeps you turning the pages,
fighting the phonetic spelling and revising reality as you go.