SNAKESKINS

released out now! 416 pages | Paperback/ebook

Author Tim Major Publisher Titan Books

Within the first few pages of Snakeskins a man rejuvenates by shedding his old body, which lives independently and self-aware for a few moments before disintegrating. It’s a horrific image, and a thoughtprovoking concept. You assume the book is going to explore the morality of a race that survives by creating beings with an in-built death sentence.

Sadly not. Snakeskins is 95% plot plot plot. In an alternate, ultra-isolationist, almost contemporary Great Britain, a group of ever-healthy übermensch “Charmers” are feared and loathed by the hoi polloi, but have somehow managed to take over the government. Of course there’s a conspiracy going on, and of course a group of disparate people (a journalist, a rebellious young Charmer, a civil servant,) stumble upon it.

As a straightforward thriller it’s adequate, if a little cosy. The pace is sprightly and the characters engaging, but the book suffers from a few too many convenient coincidences and a rushed climax. More problematic is that it exists in a world that doesn’t make sense on a socio-political level, populated by people who seem to have taken centuries to ask the right questions. The poor old discarded “skins” deserve some psychological exploration, but ultimately they’re just as much sacrifices to the plot mechanics as they are to the story’s totalitarian regime.