RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
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Sci-fi and fantasy round-up: June 24, 2020
Reviews of Hope Island by Tim Major, Engines Beneath Us by Malcolm Devlin, TTA Press, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M John Harrison and The City of a Thousand Faces by Walker Dryden
[Karen Nadine/Creative Commons]
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
IN HOPE ISLAND by Tim Major (Titan, £8.99) TV news producer Nina is trying to process the shock of abandonment by her partner.
She takes her teenage daughter to stay with the girl’s American grandparents on Hope Island in the hope that maybe there the two will be able to reconnect. But the island is a strange place, full of oddly behaved children, shouting adults and mysterious deaths.
Nina’s maternal instincts prompt her to flee but her professional instincts tell her there’s a story on the island.
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PETER MASON is gripped by a novel that confronts corporate callousness with those prepared to act to bring about change
CARL DEATH introduces a new book which explores how African science fiction is addressing climate change
Generous helpings of Hawaiian pidgin, rather good jokes, and dodging the impostors
![CS Lewis in 1947 [Pic: Scan of photograph by Arthur Strong]](https://dev.morningstaronline.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2025-04/Untitled-1.jpg.webp?itok=2jzsrA-s)
After a ruinous run at Tolkien, the streaming platforms are moving on to Narnia — a naff mix of religious allegory, colonial attitudes, and thinly veiled prejudices that is beyond rescuing, writes STEPHEN ARNELL