Defender - G.X Todd

'On the cusp of sleep, have we not all heard a voice call out our name?'

Defender by G X Todd is an imaginative thriller that draws on influences from Stephen King, Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman to create a new world - where the biggest threat mankind faces is from the voices inside your own head. If you loved The Stand, you'll love Defender, the first in a four part series.

In a world where long drinks are in short supply, a stranger listens to the voice in his head telling him to buy a lemonade from the girl sitting on a dusty road.

The moment locks them together.

Here and now it's dangerous to listen to your inner voice. Those who do, keep it quiet.

These voices have purpose.

And when Pilgrim meets Lacey, there is a reason. He just doesn't know it yet.

Defender pulls you on a wild ride to a place where the voices in your head will save or slaughter you."


I've read quite a lot of dystopia, but none quite as smart as this: the apocalypse has come not from external forces (disease, climate change, etc) but internal. Have you ever heard such a fantastic hook? The human race has been mostly decimated because people have started to hear voices (of varying degrees - from benign to sinister) in their minds.

I found them to be a really interesting aspect adding a touch of uniqueness to the genre. Not everyone hears the voices but those that do are told by them to do evil things, to commit crime, murder, suicide and if your voice doesn’t tell you to kill yourself, well, you end up descending into madness. But are the voices all bad? Should they all be feared? We are tantalised with some snippets and understanding about them but Todd still leaves plenty left unanswered and there is far more to be discovered about their origins.

At the heart of Defender are its characters Lacey, Pilgrim, Voice and Alex and the dynamics and relationships between them. It’s a very character driven read and luckily they are all stellar characters (Voice is particularly awesome with his occasional sardonic musings) that you can get behind and root for.

I liked Todd’s writing, with her words she easily manages to convey emotion and brutality. However I did feel like the plot was basic and lacking. Looking forward to the next instalment, which hopefully comes more into its own. 

Age Rating 15+. Brutal, violent and gruesome.
 

Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue

"Mary Saunders, a lower-class London schoolgirl, was born into rough cloth but hungered for lace and the trappings of a higher station than her family would ever know. In 18th-century England, Mary's shrewd instincts will get her only so far, and she despairs of the plans made for her to carve out a trade as a seamstress or a maid. Unwilling to bend to such a destiny, Mary strikes out on a painful, fateful journey all her own. Inspired by the obscure historical figure Mary Saunders, Slammerkin is a provocative, graphic tale and a rich feast of an historical novel. Author Emma Donoghue probes the gap between a young girl's quest for freedom and a better life and the shackles that society imposes on her. "Never give up your liberty."

This book is anti-erotica, depressing, but amazingly written. One of the best books I’ve read in a long while, one that stays with you. As dreadful as some of the characters are, they are all engaging. Even the main character of the story isn't inherently likable. But rather coarse, broken and vain, but still something makes you wish her a better life maybe purely out of human compassion. There is a beautiful array of female characters, who all show different aspects of being a woman in 18th-century society.  

It's about a girl who is forced into prostitution by a heartless world (London in the eighteenth century) and who progresses in the course of the book from an innocent to the most depraved of humanity. This book is just a slow ebbing of Mary’s innocence. You think she lost it entirely when her mother threw her out of the house, but she kept finding new ways to build up hope and then destroy it. Simultaneously naïve and worldly, really.
The story wends its way from beginning to end and is interesting and readable, but it is a crabbed view of humanity, without any hope of redemption or joy. I enjoyed reading it once but its not one of those books I will seek out again.    

Age Rating I would say strongly 15+. Trust me on this.