A Blast of Hunters

Rix’s miserable second novel (after What the Giants Were Saying) is a depressing diatribe against social mores, modern society, political correctness, the rule of law, and vegetarianism. In a near-future dystopian London, citizens are suffering under a brutal, authoritarian left-wing regime. As the narration explains, “Attempts to eliminate cruelty and implement environmental reforms have flipped over into the obscene”: meat-eating is a crime, one signs consent-assurance paperwork in order to have sex, and debts to society (accrued for transgressing “any boundary of behavior, etiquette, thought, or opinion”) are paid off through participating in slave camps or medical experimentation. The story opens with the protagonist, Train Man, attempting to commit suicide; a woman pulls him away from the train tracks and introduces him to a clandestine group of meat-eaters who promote returning humans to more primal behaviors. As increasing social unrest erupts into riots and the bombing of Canary Wharf, Train Man slowly becomes aware of the existence of the World Polyhedron, a manifestation of empathyless order that has been trying to take over the city. Any poignant commentary on the power of human connection is overshadowed by long-winded misanthropy, unexamined misogyny, self-loathing navel-gazing, and an exhaustingly dreary tone. Fans of slipstream and dystopian fiction can find better fare elsewhere. (July)