COMPOSITE CREATURES

RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Paperback/ebook/ audiobook

Author Caroline Hardaker Publisher Angry Robot

Norah has never seen a real bird. In the near-ish future dystopia she was born into, pollution and disease have wiped out nearly everything, including humans.

But there’s still hope! Definitely-not-at-all-creepy genetics company Easton Grove offers a bespoke organ-growing programme, creating replacement parts for paying clients. Norah can only afford the basic package, though, which means coupling up with a genetically compatible bloke and taking care of their “ovum organi” at home. Inevitably, her relationship with the being (and with her fiancé) gets weird, and then it all goes a bit ontological.

Author Caroline Hardaker makes the reader do much of the initial work, offering hints and half explanations for what’s going on and leaving the finer (and more disturbing) details to the imagination. It’s a smart choice, because giving too many details would lead to far too many unanswerable questions.

But around halfway through, she seems to lose faith in her audience’s intelligence, and starts spelling things out in patronising detail. Plus, a final exposition dump near the end undoes much of the most interesting stuff from the beginning – rendering the whole thing closer to conspiracy theory fanfic than satisfying sci-fi. Sarah Dobbs