Ogres

Tchaikovsky (Elder Race) takes a sharp look in this twisty social satire at a world in which, due to genetic modification, the 1%, now called ogres, literally tower over the 99%. At over six feet tall, Torquell, mischievous human son of a village headman, stands above his fellow non-ogres both in height and temper, which leads to trouble with 10-foot-tall ogre and village master Sir Peter and his son, Gerald, a lout given to taunting the diminutive lower class. Turned fugitive, Torquell flees his depopulated village and explores the wider world, which is ruled by ogres and filled with teeming urban slums and churned-up battlefields for mock wars that inflict real wounds. Eventually adopted by the inquisitive ogre Lady Isadora, Torquell learns of the ecological crises that took the world from humans and gave it to the ogres, a situation he resolves to reverse. Tchaikovsky’s second-person narration neatly reveals his protagonist while masking just how his destiny will play out. Readers with a bent for social commentary and solving puzzles will be doubly pleased. Agent: Simon Kavanagh, Mic Cheetham Agency. (Mar.)