An Exclusive Guest Post from Michel Faber, Author of D (A Tale of Two Worlds) — Our Monthly Speculative Fiction Pick for November
D (A Tale of Two Worlds)
Paperback $18.99
D (A Tale of Two Worlds)
Paperback $18.99
Usually, I create a strange new world for every story I write, and don’t use anything directly from my own life. So it’s ironic that D (A Tale Of Two Worlds), which Barnes & Noble has chosen as their Speculative Pick of the Month, is set partly in my home town. I haven’t done this since the late 1990s when I wrote Under The Skin, set on the spooky farm in the Scottish Highlands where I was living then.
Under The Skin was about an alien predator driving around Scotland on a grisly mission. At first glance, D (A Tale Of Two Worlds) is a much more “normal” setup, as a thirteen-year-old girl grows up with perfectly decent adoptive parents in an English seaside town. But our heroine Dhikilo comes from Somaliland, so that makes her a kind of alien in her environment. And one morning she wakes up and finds that the letter ‘D’ has disappeared from the language, and nobody but her seems to notice or care.
With the help of the mysterious Professor Dodderfield and his shape-shifting companion Mrs Robinson, Dhikilo travels to the land of Liminus, where the missing ‘D’s are serving the purposes of the Gamp, a despot who terrorises his miserable subjects. Dhikilo and Mrs Robinson must find a way to get the ‘D’s back, thus restoring our damaged language. But the Gamp and his supporters – the Magwitches, the Quilps, and the evil spirits who run The Bleak House – would love to crush Dhikilo first.
Some readers may recognise, from the names in the previous sentence, that this story is partly a homage to Dickens. But no familiarity with Dickens’ works is required and Dhikilo is very much her own girl. I wanted a heroine who’s smart, cheerful, resourceful and likeable. A lot of today’s heroines – and potential role models for youngsters – are damaged and troubled, and I felt there was room for a girl who is fundamentally OK, who can handle all the perils and come out on top.
We are living in times when language and meaning are under threat from toxically polarised debate, misinformation and corrupt authority figures. D (A Tale Of Two Worlds) addresses these issues, in the tradition of books like George Orwell’s 1984. But in these days of Covid and tragic political divisions, I think many of us have somewhat lost our appetite for depressing dystopian narratives and would prefer to go on a big adventure that ends well. D is such an adventure.
Usually, I create a strange new world for every story I write, and don’t use anything directly from my own life. So it’s ironic that D (A Tale Of Two Worlds), which Barnes & Noble has chosen as their Speculative Pick of the Month, is set partly in my home town. I haven’t done this since the late 1990s when I wrote Under The Skin, set on the spooky farm in the Scottish Highlands where I was living then.
Under The Skin was about an alien predator driving around Scotland on a grisly mission. At first glance, D (A Tale Of Two Worlds) is a much more “normal” setup, as a thirteen-year-old girl grows up with perfectly decent adoptive parents in an English seaside town. But our heroine Dhikilo comes from Somaliland, so that makes her a kind of alien in her environment. And one morning she wakes up and finds that the letter ‘D’ has disappeared from the language, and nobody but her seems to notice or care.
With the help of the mysterious Professor Dodderfield and his shape-shifting companion Mrs Robinson, Dhikilo travels to the land of Liminus, where the missing ‘D’s are serving the purposes of the Gamp, a despot who terrorises his miserable subjects. Dhikilo and Mrs Robinson must find a way to get the ‘D’s back, thus restoring our damaged language. But the Gamp and his supporters – the Magwitches, the Quilps, and the evil spirits who run The Bleak House – would love to crush Dhikilo first.
Some readers may recognise, from the names in the previous sentence, that this story is partly a homage to Dickens. But no familiarity with Dickens’ works is required and Dhikilo is very much her own girl. I wanted a heroine who’s smart, cheerful, resourceful and likeable. A lot of today’s heroines – and potential role models for youngsters – are damaged and troubled, and I felt there was room for a girl who is fundamentally OK, who can handle all the perils and come out on top.
We are living in times when language and meaning are under threat from toxically polarised debate, misinformation and corrupt authority figures. D (A Tale Of Two Worlds) addresses these issues, in the tradition of books like George Orwell’s 1984. But in these days of Covid and tragic political divisions, I think many of us have somewhat lost our appetite for depressing dystopian narratives and would prefer to go on a big adventure that ends well. D is such an adventure.