Metronome [Goldsboro Exclusive]

by Tom Watson

Hardcover, 2022

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Collection

Publication

Bloomsbury Publishing (2022), 320 pages

Description

For twelve years, Aina and Whitney have been in exile on an island for a crime they committed together, tethered to a croft by pills they must take for survival every eight hours. They've kept busy Aina with her garden, her jigsaw, her music; Whitney with his sculptures and maps but something is not right. Shipwrecks have begun washing up, and their supply drops have stopped. And on the day they're meant to be collected for parole, the Warden does not come. Instead there's a sheep. But sheep can't swim. As days pass, Aina begins to suspect that their prison is part of a peninsula, and that Whitney has been keeping secrets. And if he's been keeping secrets, maybe she should too. Convinced they've been abandoned, she starts investigating ways she might escape. As she comes to grips with the decisions that haunt her past, she realises her biggest choice is yet to come.… (more)

Media reviews

There is no doubting Watson’s talent at the sentence level, but his lack of rigour around core ideas left me frustrated and unconvinced

User reviews

LibraryThing member aadyer
Initially, it started very well with an interesting poem eyes and also a feeling of something very different. This felt like good suspenseful near future dystopian fiction. However, it loses its way partially around about the midpoint to 2/3 through and I don’t think it really recovers from that
Show More
stumble. I’m not sure that the ending is particularly satisfying, but then again, it’s also not a cursory warning. I think the characters were well drawn out and I think that their ploys and motives were entirely believable. I do however feel that it lacks something.
Show Less

Awards

Arthur C. Clarke Award (Shortlist — 2023)

Language

Original language

English

Physical description

320 p.; 0.04 inches

ISBN

1526639548 / 9781526639547

Local notes

For twelve years Aina and Whitney have been in exile on an island for a crime they committed together, tethered to a croft by pills they must take for survival every eight hours. They've kept busy - Aina with her garden, her jigsaw, her music; Whitney with his sculptures and maps - but something is not right. Shipwrecks have begun washing up, and their supply drops have stopped. And on the day they're meant to be collected for parole, the Warden does not come. Instead there's a sheep. But sheep can't swim.

Signed by the author, limited to 500 copies, decorative sprayed edges with sheep (so adorable!).
Page: 0.3774 seconds