The Machine

Description

Shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award 2014, this is a Frankenstein tale for our time from one of the UK's brightest new literary talents. Vic returned from war tormented by his nightmares. His once happy marriage to Beth all but disintegrated. A machine promised salvation, purging him of all memory. Now the machines are gone, declared too controversial, the side-effects too harmful. But within Beth's flat is an ever-whirring black box. She knows that memories can be put back and that she can rebuild her husband piece by piece. A Frankenstein tale for the 21st century, The Machine is a story of the indelibility of memory, the human cost of science and the horrors of love.

James Smythe is the winner of the Wales Fiction Book of the Year 2013, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2014. He is the author of The Testimony, The Machine and No Harm Can Come To A Good Man, as well as The Anomaly Quartet, which currently includes the novels The Explorer and The Echo. James lives in London and teaches creative writing. He can be found on Twitter @jpsmythe

'Savage, intimate, inexorable' Nick Harkaway 'The Machine is the work of a young writer with a preternaturally powerful and distinctive voice' Guardian 'Phenomenal ... simply unmissable' Tor.com 'Extraordinary' Dazed & Confused 'Reminiscent of Ian McEwan at his most macabre' Will Wiles, author of Care of Wooden Floors