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The Dying Light
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Product Description
Review
'Beautifully written, sophisticated thriller' (BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH )
'Set in a mdoern Britain where surveillance reigns like the one remaining eye of God, this is a tense and claustrophobic conspiracy thriller.' (CATHOLIC HERALD )
'Set in a mdoern Britain where surveillance reigns like the one remaining eye of God, this is a tense and claustrophobic conspiracy thriller.' (CATHOLIC HERALD )
Book Description
A chilling thriller of the police-state that the UK is about to become... from 'one of the masters of the genre' [SUNDAY TELEGRAPH]
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Henry Porter has written one of the best thrillers I've ever read. The Dying Light is set in Britain in the near future, where the tentacles of the surveillance state have been extending their reach throughout society. Our rulers are driven by misguided paternalism; their sense of right and wrong has been subverted by the inevitably corrupting influence of unaccountable power.
The heroine, Kate Lockhart, is thrown into a dangerous attempt to uncover the rotteness of the government after her estranged best friend is killed in a bomb blast and puts her unwillingly in the centre of a last-ditch effort to save British democracy.
The best thing about this book is Mr Porter's characterisation: he vividly describes all the actors in the drama. He introduces us to an unlikely band of heroes and villains, and people sitting uneasily inbetween. All the characters have human doubts and fears, but those on the good side also burn brightly with a deeply human longing to live freely and make their own decisions about their own lives. They retain a moral compass that the government lost long ago thanks to the death of ideology and to the cult of managerialism and centralisation.
Though it would be wrong to expose the twists and surprises in the plot (of which there are enough to make the book almost impossible to put down!), it is worth stressing - as Mr Porter does in his Afterword - that all the laws used and abused by his fictional government are already on the statute book. So on one level this book is a frightening and thought-provoking exposé of a country that has sleep-walked into putting too much trust to politicians and civil servants who rarely reciprocate by trusting the people to get on with their own lives without nannying or worse. The only thing standing between Britain in 2009 and Mr Porter's fiction is the relative decency of our current rulers.
At the same time The Dying Light is also an uplifting story of the bravery of some very human people in the face of authoritarianism run rampant. In this way it reminds me of the outstanding film The Lives Of Others: just as the film movingly depicts the heroism of the dissident and of the Stasi officer whose humanity makes him rebel against the machine in which he is a human cog, the key characters of this book include both public servants whose moral qualms trump deference to authority and would-be free spirits. Buy this book - you will finish it in a few sittings but you will have much food for thought well after you read the last page.
The heroine, Kate Lockhart, is thrown into a dangerous attempt to uncover the rotteness of the government after her estranged best friend is killed in a bomb blast and puts her unwillingly in the centre of a last-ditch effort to save British democracy.
The best thing about this book is Mr Porter's characterisation: he vividly describes all the actors in the drama. He introduces us to an unlikely band of heroes and villains, and people sitting uneasily inbetween. All the characters have human doubts and fears, but those on the good side also burn brightly with a deeply human longing to live freely and make their own decisions about their own lives. They retain a moral compass that the government lost long ago thanks to the death of ideology and to the cult of managerialism and centralisation.
Though it would be wrong to expose the twists and surprises in the plot (of which there are enough to make the book almost impossible to put down!), it is worth stressing - as Mr Porter does in his Afterword - that all the laws used and abused by his fictional government are already on the statute book. So on one level this book is a frightening and thought-provoking exposé of a country that has sleep-walked into putting too much trust to politicians and civil servants who rarely reciprocate by trusting the people to get on with their own lives without nannying or worse. The only thing standing between Britain in 2009 and Mr Porter's fiction is the relative decency of our current rulers.
At the same time The Dying Light is also an uplifting story of the bravery of some very human people in the face of authoritarianism run rampant. In this way it reminds me of the outstanding film The Lives Of Others: just as the film movingly depicts the heroism of the dissident and of the Stasi officer whose humanity makes him rebel against the machine in which he is a human cog, the key characters of this book include both public servants whose moral qualms trump deference to authority and would-be free spirits. Buy this book - you will finish it in a few sittings but you will have much food for thought well after you read the last page.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The author's aim is admirable. The style is good and the action interesting, though there are some improbabilities. What is best is the exposure of the dangers of our present increasingly secretive, insidious society, watching, recording, stop-and-searching, bugging, and intruding into the everyday lives of the citizens of our country. The excuse is reasonable: we must protect ourselves from terrorists and the enemy within. Also, cctv, for example, is very useful in detecting and preventing crime. But power grows by what it feeds on. Scores of new acts limiting the people's freedom have come into force in the last twenty years. That is not to mention the secret machinations of the controllers. What we must most fear is what we don't know.
Paradoxically, the snag with this gloom-casting novel is its optimism. Despite the newly invented surveillance machines, the all-over telephone recordings, the accurate pin-pointing of where everyone is, our heroes and about a thousand of their supporters evade supervision and walk through police and military barriers as if by magic. Politicians wary of the new developments continue to function at Westminster even after they have been exposed. Suspected dissidents are listed, their life histories recorded down to the last pimple, their photographs distributed, but they walk through. In reality, the power mongers, if they finally take over, will not be so gentle, will not stop for a chat, will not reject torture and prison camps, as we already know. George Orwell's 1984 is referred to in this book, and that is surely a more realistic view of a dark future. Not a happy ending. But if The Dying Light is a call for us all to be more aware of the bad things that happen around us, it is welcome. And not a bad read!
Paradoxically, the snag with this gloom-casting novel is its optimism. Despite the newly invented surveillance machines, the all-over telephone recordings, the accurate pin-pointing of where everyone is, our heroes and about a thousand of their supporters evade supervision and walk through police and military barriers as if by magic. Politicians wary of the new developments continue to function at Westminster even after they have been exposed. Suspected dissidents are listed, their life histories recorded down to the last pimple, their photographs distributed, but they walk through. In reality, the power mongers, if they finally take over, will not be so gentle, will not stop for a chat, will not reject torture and prison camps, as we already know. George Orwell's 1984 is referred to in this book, and that is surely a more realistic view of a dark future. Not a happy ending. But if The Dying Light is a call for us all to be more aware of the bad things that happen around us, it is welcome. And not a bad read!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I have just finished this book, delaying departure for a holiday because I just had to finish it. Everything about it works magnificently - the characters are original and credible, the plot is like a Rolls Royce engine, the pace and tension superb. But it is the message that will last, I think. It should drive everyone who reads it to sign up for Liberty and No2ID.net. This is a classic word-of-mouth situation, where everyone tells all their friends they simply must read it. They simply must! Even if they are part of the great British apathetic classes, they'll get a rattling good yarn to enjoy.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good page turner
I have just finished this after compulsively reading the last few hundred pages but, at the same time, not enjoying it very much. Read more
Published 5 months ago by SomersetWhite
The Dying Light
Just finished this and whilst it got off to a bit of a slow start, it was one of those books that in the 2nd half, I couldn't put down. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Zubenubi
THE STATE WE'RE IN......
By far and away the best Henry Porter novel yet - fully realised, gripping, terrifying and (as of November 2011) worryingly prescient. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Winstanley
Great pace, intelligently written
I've just finished reading this book, having stayed up half the night to finish it. A great plot line with lots of twists, the parallels with what we accept in real life with a... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Amazon Shopper
A 1984 for our time
The surveillance state projected a few years in to the future. English institutions subtly perverted in the name of security and defeating terror. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Roger Holden
The Dying Light
The Dying Light
Without giving away to much of the story line, this book should be required reading for all UK citizens. Read more
Without giving away to much of the story line, this book should be required reading for all UK citizens. Read more
Published 16 months ago by KeithD
Really rather good
It's not Le Carre, but it's a very good thriller nonetheless. Really worth a read, not just for the fact it takes an extablished piece of scary Government policy and runs with it... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Alfred King
Dying Light-Henry Porter
An absolutely fantastic read. Totally gripping, I couldn't put it down once I started to read.
Although it is a work of fiction it is a totally credible storey which... Read more
Although it is a work of fiction it is a totally credible storey which... Read more
Published 17 months ago by QB Bri
Dystopian Britain.
It's a deeply satisfying pleasure to discover a writer who can fashion a complex plot, whose complexity mirrors the contemporary world, whose characters evolve even as they forward... Read more
Published 17 months ago by D. W. Blewitt
Gripping and terrifying
The reviews on the jacket sleeve say it all ... this is a very scary look at an imagined close future, entirely possible given current legislation. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Polly Potter
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