Description
Book SynopsisA brilliant fantastical satire from the Booker-shortlisted author, reminiscent of the best of Jonathan Swift''Magnus Mills is Britain''s most original writer, so forget everything you''ve been told about fiction - he has never even heard of the rules that apply to everyone else'' The Times''A beautiful, singular book; funny and acutely observed'' Independent Far away, in the ancient empire of Greater Fallowfields, things are falling apart. The imperial orchestra is presided over by a conductor who has never played a note, the clocks are changed constantly to ensure that the sun always sets at five o'' clock, and the Astronomer Royal is only able to use the observatory telescope when he can find a sixpence to put in its slot.But while the kingdom drifts, awaiting the return of the young emperor, who has gone abroad and communicates only by penny post, a sinister and unfamiliar enemy is getting closer and closer...
A Cruel
Trade Review
Magnus Mills is Britain's most original writer, so forget everything you've been told about fiction - he has never even heard of the rules that apply to everyone else * The Times *
Just when you think Magnus Mills couldn't possibly get any better, off he goes. This is a masterpiece * Dan Rhodes, author of Timoleon Vieta Come Home *
Comedy's blackest, funniest and most astute practitioner * Daily Telegraph *
A beautiful, singular book; funny and acutely observed * Independent on Sunday *
Mills is a true original who has always ploughed his own - occasionally surreal - furrow in a series of comic gems. His latest, a quirky mix of fairy tale and political satire, offers clear parallels between the fictional world and our own. It's like Orwell's 1984 rewritten by Tolkien * Mail on Sunday *
One of our finest comic stylists on top form * Financial Times *
A Cruel Bird is as utterly odd, endearing and disturbing a book as anything he has written before. The novel's unnamed narrator is the principal composer to the imperial court of a place called Greater Fallowfields, which bears about as much and as little resemblance to anywhere in the actual world as any of Mills' places and locations. The plot is similarly indistinct and, thus, vaguely and impressively massive -- Ian Samson * Guardian *
