It is interesting reading this book now that I’ve moved to the area in which much of it is set – the descriptions make it seem very much more rural than the sprawling commute belt I know.
While the story is familiar, from the Jeff Waynes version, the book gives a very different feel to the characters – for me at least – with many of them being weaker (as people, rather than as descriptions) and more broken in the book.
One of the important features is what is left out, there are big gaps in the narrative while the narrator is holed up in a tragic situation of some sort, there is also a somewhat uncomfortable ‘from my brothers eyes’ point of view for parts of the decay of London, which somehow doesn’t seems to fit into the flow.
I couldn’t help but thinking of the plight of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, there were certain parallels with the descriptions of destroyed parts of the city.
Who should read this book: sci-fi people, its one of the classics, and its a different experience to the audio version
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