Let me tell you about these two novels about women’s lives in terrain under occupation by external powers. The first is a historical novel about the struggle for personal and political freedom in 20th-century Greece. The second is a futuristic dystopia about how, in the climate crisis, the wealthy lay claim to the coolest lands.
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Arrested Song by Irena Karafilly
Calliope is a young schoolmistress in a Lesbos village in Nazi-occupied Greece. When she’s conscripted as a translator, she finds herself attracted to the enemy officer who is her boss. Struggling with the notion that most nations have a violent history and most people have a streak of cruelty as well as kindness, she joins the Resistance.
When the Occupation ends, the Civil War begins. Calliope is shocked to find her compatriots can be as vicious as the Nazis. But she finds a way of using her teaching skills to spread a little light in dark times, becoming an advocate for battered women, until the military dictatorship threatens her very existence.
Is this a character-based novel or a fictionalisation of Greek history? For many readers – as I assume was the author’s intention – it’s both, but I didn’t feel as close to the main character or learn as much as I’d have liked. Nevertheless, an interesting novel about the struggle for personal and political autonomy. Thanks to publishers Legend Press for my advanced proof copy.
When the Occupation ends, the Civil War begins. Calliope is shocked to find her compatriots can be as vicious as the Nazis. But she finds a way of using her teaching skills to spread a little light in dark times, becoming an advocate for battered women, until the military dictatorship threatens her very existence.
Is this a character-based novel or a fictionalisation of Greek history? For many readers – as I assume was the author’s intention – it’s both, but I didn’t feel as close to the main character or learn as much as I’d have liked. Nevertheless, an interesting novel about the struggle for personal and political autonomy. Thanks to publishers Legend Press for my advanced proof copy.
Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling
In the middle of the 21st-century, North American is doomed. Only the privileged few can escape the roasting summer temperatures and devastating floods. Rich and poor find a degree of consolation in their Flicks: an online connection implanted at birth.
Rose has been a sex worker in the luxurious Floating City off the coast of Boston but now she’s on a clandestine mission to find out what’s going on in the derelict oil town in northern Canada where the air is fresh and cool. Grant, a recent graduate of an elite university, has also been drawn to Camp Zero, but he’s soon to discover he hasn’t been recruited for his teaching skills. Two days to the north by snowmobile, a group of women carrying out climate surveillance in an isolated Cold War-era research station begin to question the terms of their employment.
The author cleverly weaves these disparate threads together to create a credible dystopia for our times, encompassing the climate crisis, inequalities, idealism and betrayal. Thanks to publishers John Murray for my proof copy.
Rose has been a sex worker in the luxurious Floating City off the coast of Boston but now she’s on a clandestine mission to find out what’s going on in the derelict oil town in northern Canada where the air is fresh and cool. Grant, a recent graduate of an elite university, has also been drawn to Camp Zero, but he’s soon to discover he hasn’t been recruited for his teaching skills. Two days to the north by snowmobile, a group of women carrying out climate surveillance in an isolated Cold War-era research station begin to question the terms of their employment.
The author cleverly weaves these disparate threads together to create a credible dystopia for our times, encompassing the climate crisis, inequalities, idealism and betrayal. Thanks to publishers John Murray for my proof copy.
 | It’s interesting how minds work, isn’t it? This week, writers when writers were asked to compose a 99-word story about golden onions, my thoughts leapfrogged from these novels of occupation to the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and from there to the fairy-tale architecture of eastern orthodox churches. Here is my feeble attempt to corral those thoughts into a story. |
The onion domes of St Basil’s
His name was one of the most common in the Russian language, yet it stoked fear in Tatars and Cossacks alike. Did Ivan want to go down in history as Terrible or as the czar who commissioned a beautiful church? True, the domes of St Basil’s commemorate a bloody battle and he had the architect blinded on completion so he’d never create again. But God would have looked down on his cathedral and seen the shape of a star. The domes on the red-brick towers shone like candles, like golden onions. Onions – so versatile, so welcome in frozen lands.
His name was one of the most common in the Russian language, yet it stoked fear in Tatars and Cossacks alike. Did Ivan want to go down in history as Terrible or as the czar who commissioned a beautiful church? True, the domes of St Basil’s commemorate a bloody battle and he had the architect blinded on completion so he’d never create again. But God would have looked down on his cathedral and seen the shape of a star. The domes on the red-brick towers shone like candles, like golden onions. Onions – so versatile, so welcome in frozen lands.
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