Julian Meynell's Books

An apocalyptic novel as opposed to a post-apocalyptic novel. The disintegration into barbarism goes to fast. The concerns of the novel are essentially the same as Golding's Lord of the Flies and the novels were written about the same time. However, unlike Lord of the Flies the disintegration happens too quickly and the characters hurl themselves into barbarism with a speed and with a certainty that nothing of civilization can be recovered, which is too easy and immediate and undermines the message of the novel as a result.

It has good scenes and the writing after the first quarter is effective, but in the end it is substantially less effective than Christopher's juvenalia. The apocalypse is a creative, unusual and fascinating one.

Extraordinarily misanthropic. Good times.