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5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant and truly original creation of a remote future, 22 Dec 1999
This is an excellent first novel. I'm not someone who would normally enthuse over a book, but Palmer has created a vivid vision of a future city, very different from our own society. His style and ideas are original and impressive, and his tale is told with an imaginative writing style. The Setting: The City is the last remaining outpost of "civilisation", on a world completely over-run with rampant vegetation. Have you ever looked at a ruined building - how quickly nature takes it over, breaking down concrete with it roots and branches, eating walls with moss, bringing down roofs with ivy? This book turns this into a swift and horrific scenario. The city is slowly being choked to death by the products of Mankind's tampering with genetics. Greenery is becoming a deadly plague, squeezing humans into ever smaller parts of the city. As the book progresses, I truly felt the panic of the population, the steady descent into decay, anarchy and death, as a civilisation is silently strangled to death by creeping vines (though so much more real and sinister than Day of the Triffids!). Read together with "Glass" - the partner rather than sequel to this novel - each book shows a different version of the same city (or is it...), separated in time and space. This book is a must for anyone interested in new and original modern science fiction.
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