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3.5/5

This strange, speculative story takes place immediately after a nuclear disaster where a group of wealthy people have pre-paid to stay in safety at a hotel. The narrator and the other guests become increasingly disconnected from the world outside the hotel as they face censorship and their inability to adjust psychologically to what has happened. It's a quick and unsettling read told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator.

This is a short yet frightening account of what could happen in case of a nuclear war. The rich have assured themselves of a spot in the luxurious Termush hotel, where they will be safe and can continue life as they knew it. Then other survivors, often sick with radiation sickness, start arriving on the premises, pleading for help. That‘s not what the rich payed for…

(Photo: Chatel, France)

#WeeklyForecast 52/23

A little late but here‘s my forecast. I just started Songs for the Missing, from O‘Nan‘s backlist. Next will be the tagged one, based on @batsy ‘s review. I hope to fit in another one for #litsytob24 and a thriller, The Soulmate, because I am on vacation and thrillers are always my companion while vacationing!

The slim, hypnotic novella of the wealthy barricading themselves in a luxury hotel against the radioactive fallout of a nuclear disaster doesn't read like fiction; this is 100% what would happen in our world if it were possible. It's short & dreamy, a slow-burn of a book that gets under your skin & unsettles. The fear of contamination, of the "rights" of the powerful to be able to restrict the rights of the ordinary—all too horrifyingly familiar.

Bk7 of my #BookMail is this very pretty Faber Edition of a classic SFF novel. This post-apocalyptic 1967 dystopia is set in Termush, a luxury coastal resort. All the wealthy guests are survivors, preppers who reserved rooms long before the Disaster. Exclusive radiation shelters, lavish provisions inside, radioactive dust outside. Surviving the apocalypse is just the start of their problems, soon Management starts censoring news & sedating guests.

"I must ask myself whether I am not colouring what I see with my own views."

Holm leaves enough space in the text that his narrator's self-query is relevant to the reader, also. It's a book of impressions, partially understood events & delirium, that, coloured by my own views, perhaps, seems like a metaphor for late stage capitalism. The rich provide themselves with a haven from social collapse, leave the poor to suffer, and start to splinter ⬇️

"- I do have some faith in democracy, but I don't think that this vote can be regarded as a matter of course as democratic. The voters knew too little about the alternatives.
- They are always Ill-informed.
- You are possibly right, but democracy does depend on certain principles of freedom and these are often more essential than demonstrations of freedom. That vote was a demonstration of freedom, but it went against the principles of freedom."

What? 🤨
Post-apocalypse? ☢️
Dystopian, you say? 👮
Luxury bunker complex in which the mega-wealthy shelter while the rest of the world descends into nightmarish chaos?🔥☠️🔥
Hmm 🤔
And you say this is science fiction rather than journalism? 🧐
Very well, you've piqued my interest, sir. Pass it over 📖