Liam Brown

This is a post apocalypse novel, or is it? A virus has killed millions of people, or has it? People have to live in bio-safe houses, or do they? Close human contact is to be avoided at all costs, or does it?

I was confused, or was I?

For all I know this could be a thinly veiled Brexit novel.

Set in England, I could not imagine another scenario that even came close to describing this novel. It is also a brilliant pastiche of the modern always-connected family with its inherent lack of empathy and communication problems.

You could describe this as a horror story overlaid with mundanity, teen angst, and mid life crises. It actually reads better than that and I enjoyed it. Don’t expect to have your horizons stretched but expect to be intrigued.… (mehr)

This was a bit of an odd read but one I really enjoyed. I sometimes think I would love to go and live in the wilds and try to survive without the trappings of work and commitments. However, I usually associate this with the countryside or some faraway island. Wildlife brings things a lot closer to home.

Adam has everything he could need, a beautiful home, wife and children. He has a highly paid job in sales and from the outside his life is one massive party with an endless supply of drink, drugs and women. However, following the financial crash various cracks to start to appear in his life and eventually he loses his job. Unwilling to admit to his wife that he has hit a brick wall he keeps up the pretence of going to work whilst falling deeper into depression and debt. Eventually things all come to a head and Adam decides the best thing he can do is to disappear. He spends his last few quid on a bottle of vodka and tries to end his life. However, the derelict park he ends up in isn't really all that empty and a tramp called Red takes him under his wing. He discovers a whole new world where a band of men who have been forgotten by society have grouped together to live off the land away from the rest of civilisation. Things however are not always as ideal as they seem and the leader runs a very tight ship with days and weeks planned out to ensure the men neither get lazy or have time to waste.

I really enjoyed this book, it has a bit of everything, some graphic violence, some humorous parts and a storyline that keeps you wanting to turn the page. It really does make you think about the world we live in and how things can change in an instant. The comforts we all take for granted can be whipped away in a heartbeat and then we will learn to appreciate warmth and food in our belly over tv or a smart phone. All the characters are well described and each has their own little personality that makes the reader want to see how they react to different circumstances. My only criticism was that the location just didn't seem at all feasible, they are supposedly living in an abandoned park that it is only a few hundred meters from shops, and yet have very few outsiders looking into the place. That was a little hard to swallow but if you put that aside then the rest of the plot falls into place.

Think of the classic comedy 'The Good Life' crossed with Lord of the Flies and you get a taste of what to expect. Not quite 5 stars but easily an author I will read again.… (mehr)

‘For weeks, it was all anybody spoke about. The virus had spread from the Philippines to Indonesia. Then from Malaysia to Thailand. Then to China. India. Russia. New cases were appearing by the day, with no sign of stopping. The death toll doubling by the hour. Then the minute. Pretty soon we lost count. It was simply millions.‘ Liam Brown’s 2019 novel Skin presents us with a world that must have seemed unlikely at the time of writing, but which now has striking similarities with everyday experience. In a dystopian near-future, a virus has decimated the world population. People are confined within their homes to protect them from the disease, connected to the outside world only by video calls and the internet, sinking into the mental blur of long-term isolation. Yet this isn’t the worst thing, for Brown’s virus takes a particularly cruel form. Spread by human contact, through breath or microscopic flakes of skin, it requires the members of a household to quarantine themselves separately. All human contact is out. Food is delivered by the government. Life has become a solo experience. This is the ‘new normal’. But, five years into lockdown, an English woman called Angela makes a shocking discovery which leads (or should have lead) her to question everything she has been told...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/05/20/skin-2019-liam-brown/… (mehr)

I do like a good dystopian story every now and again, and Liam Brown's novel is the best kind - with just a slight tweak to reality, we could all be living this nightmare.

After a strange virus sweeps the world, survivors are forced to live in seclusion with the fear that even coming into contact with another human being means instant and hideous death. But what is the alternative? Angela Allen shares a home with her husband and two teenage children, yet the only chance the family get to talk face to face is onscreen at mealtimes - otherwise they are locked away from each other in separate rooms, Angela and Colin working from home, while seventeen year old Amber pointlessly expends energy on exercise and younger brother Charlie causes trouble on his computer. Some might say this is a normal 21st century household, but the author builds on the claustrophobia and tension, alternating with flashbacks to the start of the epidemic five years earlier. Then when Angela meets a stranger on her official patrol of the neighbourhood and realises that he doesn't need to wear any protective gear yet hasn't fallen victim to the epidemic, her curiosity is stirred.

Now, I spend a lot of time alone, reading, but I think I would go mad if I was trapped within the same four walls for the rest of my life, and that is what happens to Angela's family, in different ways. Only the enigmatic Jazz, living in a handmade boat in the gym hall of a local school, saves Angela - but at what cost? A blend of The Stand and Hugh Howey's Wool Trilogy, Skin is a thought-provoking story, but I felt the world-building petered out slightly - I think I was expecting more of a conspiracy - and I was left wondering about the characters at the end. Will there be a sequel?… (mehr)