MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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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]
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
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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