John Aberdein

Strip the willow is a dystopian novel by the Scottish author John Aberdein. The story is slightly reminiscent of The Business by another Scottish author, Iain Banks. However, in Strip the willow the story is bleaker and the premise of Banks' novel is worked out further.

In Strip the willow, globalization, has pushed so far that a huge company, called LeopCorp, has taken over the city of "Uberdeen" and imposes its commercial interests renaming the city, streets and facilities Uberstreet, and UberEye. The novel follows the lives of a number of characters, victims of globalization and global displacement.

The story is not very clear, and seems loosely based on a fixation of the author with the concept of globalization driven to extremes, which hinders the development of the story. The story is contrived and lacks originality. The best and most authentic parts are formed by those describing the experiences of some of the characters fishing at sea, which are probably inspired by the author's autobiographical background in his early career as herring and scallop fisherman.

Throughout the book, the text is peppered with obscene expletives.… (mehr)