A blind survivor.
A ship on an unknown voyage.
Islands that are both stories and worlds.
Rescued from a fire at sea, you are taken aboard a drifting ship. Each night, the captain describes a new island — places of wonder, ruin, satire, and sorrow. From hollowed out mountains to beaches rebuilt with every tide, these islands form a fractured atlas of a broken world. Strange Islands is a voyage told through fragments, fables, and uncanny visions.
What did I think?
Strange by name and strange by nature. That was my initial impression of Strange Islands by Philip Stanier but as I turned each page I was drawn deeper and deeper into the weird and wonderful web that had been woven by the dreamlike and lyrical prose.
It's a very difficult book to describe as I think every reader needs to experience it for themselves. I was just coasting along on a crest on a wave when I had a moment of clarity that made me exclaim out loud. I think it was the chapter about skyscrapers that made me pause to reflect on the damage we have done to our planet.
Strange Islands is a book I would like to read again now that I have finished reading it. It is so vividly described that I felt as if I had been pulled into the book to experience every island for myself. It's a book that refuses to sit in any one genre; fantasy, cli-fi, dystopian, speculative...it has a foot in each one but is something very unique and unusual.
Captivating, thought-provoking and poetic, Strange Islands is a book that is difficult to put down once you pick it up and it is a book that has stayed with me long after turning the final page. If you're looking for something extraordinary and original to read then I would highly recommend Strange Islands.
I received a gifted hardback to read and review for the Love Books Tours Bookstagram Tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.
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