Chimera (Salt Modern Fiction)

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You are never really sure who is more out of touch with reality in this book as most of the characters seem to be quite fragile mentally! While Violet is in the Asylum, Clara moves into their home to take care of Felix and this proves difficult for Violet to deal with when she is eventually let out. The algorithms are conservative by default and designed to give you more control over your creative process,” Alice continues. Alice Thomson (born 24 April 1967) [1] is a British political journalist. She is an associate editor, weekly columnist, and political interviewer for The Times.

Artemis has recently returned to Earth, alone. As though her memory has been wiped clean, she has forgotten what happened after the landing. By writing down sensations, dreams and literary fragments floating in her consciousness, she is hoping to recover some of those experiences. Chimera is the result. Thompson … conjures up a strange universe for her characters, drawing the reader in with teasing prose and suggestive paradoxes … but the real suspense comes from the way the author plays with her shadowy characters, her more surreal clues and, ultimately, her readersAlice Thompson, one-time keyboard player for Eighties band The Woodentops, is now an established novelist, who has won praise from Ian Rankin and Stephen King. The horror master would no doubt approve of this slim Edwardian-era gothic, too, recalling as it does both Rebecca and The Silence Of The Lambs.’ — Stephanie Cross, The Daily Mail In Herd’s review, published in the latest edition of the TLS (September 8 2023), she described Chimera as a “brilliant” sci-fi novel which challenges readers “not to understand the physics, but to follow the novel’s strands of mystery”. The dangers of AI have been highlighted recently by Elon Musk and other key figures. Chat GPT has become so sophisticated, it is writing essays for students. Who knows, AI might have written this review. AI might even have written Chimera .

La trama que se menciona es interesante pero la forma en que se desarrolla es bastante predecible y simple , lo que más me interesó/frustró/desesperó es la situación de que la protagonista no puede ir en contra o dudar de su esposo, porque en estos tiempos eso equivalía a locura (lo cual si pasó en el libro), tanto es el machismo que existía en la sociedad que ella misma se cuestiona su estabilidad mental por dudar sobre que hace su marido, sus amigas le cuestionan que ¿cómo puede dudar de su esposo siendo este un hombre tan atractivo?, los doctores solo consideran la palabra del esposo sobre cómo proceder para “arreglar” y dar salud a Violet. Any Cop?: The idea of erasure reminds me of Niamh Prior’s recent short story titled ‘Peter and Jane’ , which uses only the 300 key words from the eponymous Ladybird First Reader Series to convey dark tales of Peter and Jane’s adulthood. Similarly, it is the sub-text of Chimerathat haunts, and the questions this provocative novel asks.

Books by Alice

This book continuously makes me recall the experiences of The Yellow Wallpaper and Rebecca. I liked that while just telling a very entertaining story, the book also explores some of the darker sides of both sexes. It reaches beyond just the surface and digs into some very serious and deep fears. On reaching the moon, the crew settle into a camp that has been prepared for them. It doesn’t take long for the place to start affecting them. They try to ascertain what is real and how dreams can effect their surroundings. Imagination, especially when generating fear, is a powerful force with tangible impact. Set in a not-so-distant future, Alice Thompson’s eighth work of fiction, Chimera, is just that: a chimera of a novel. It also happens to be the name of the spaceship sent on a follow-up expedition to the Moon Oneiros. The mission is to look for micro-organisms that might alleviate the critical levels of carbon dioxide on Earth. But soon enough, we sense there is also a darker purpose.’ — Afric McGlinchey, Bookmunch As her characters “cruise” through space, Thompson keeps the science - the “atoms and molecules and stardust and dark matter” - accessible and in harmony with the poetic tone of the book. This world feels like a natural continuation of our own, including its ethical dilemmas. I wouldn’t say Thompson has a particularly fantastic writing style but she has quite an imagination when it comes to vivid imagery. Some of the scenes are actually squirm-worthy, which made for an all the more enjoyable read. Because I don’t read a lot of horror, I must admit that this was an exciting read at times.

The first section is set on the spaceship travelled in, Chimera. The woman, Artemis, is on board as an expert in dreams and how they are useful in processing consciousness. The crew is made up of a mix of humans and dryads (a hybrid of programmed computer and cloned human DNA) – with the mix of human to robot in each varying. Several of the humans were selected as they were neurodivergent. Although skilled in their assigned role, the key attribute required is loyalty to Mission Control. In 2014, jointly with colleagues from The Times, she was Political Journalist of the Year in the Press Gazette awards. [3] She was previously a Trustee of the think tank Policy Exchange, [4] on the Policy Committee of the CPRE, and a governor of Bute House preparatory school. [5] Thomson presents the podcast interview series Past Imperfect with fellow Times columnist Rachel Sylvester on Times Radio, which began in July 2020. [6] In December 2022, Thomson was chosen as the Interviewer of the Year at the Press Gazette British Journalism Awards. [7] Publications [ edit ] She is glad to be on this mission because she can trust that all the materials around her are real, unlike the ubiquitous fabricated scenarios of virtual realities on technology-obsessed Earth. The astronauts on the previous mission failed to return, but this information has been withheld from the crew, who are also accompanied by dryads – sophisticated AIs with synthetic bodies. Alice Thompson's gripping, deep space novel sees scientist and dream investigator Artemis travelling to the distant moon of Oneiros. Her ship, the Chimera has been sent to look for organisms that will help assuage Earth's global warming, but it becomes clear on the journey that there are other disturbing reasons for the mission. The Cambridge dictionary tells us that ‘chimera’ can also refer to an organism that contains cells or tissues from two or more different species or from two or more genetically different living things. This is one of the themes of the book. When AI dryad hybrids are being cross-cloned with human DNA to resemble humans so closely, what specifically differentiates the human from the machine? In other words, what does it mean to be human?

The Singing Line by Alice Thomson | PenguinRandomHouse.com". PenguinRandomhouse.com . Retrieved 29 January 2016. Set in a not-so-distant future, Alice Thompson’s eighth work of fiction, Chimera , is just that: a chimera of a novel. It also happens to be the name of the spaceship sent on a follow-up expedition to the Moon Oneiros. The mission is to look for micro-organisms that might alleviate the critical levels of carbon dioxide on Earth. But soon enough, we sense there is also a darker purpose. La historia es claustrofóbica, espesa y abrumadora. La parcialidad del narrador no hace sino añadir a ese sentimiento de desorientación; nunca estamos del todo seguros de si lo que vemos es real. Las vagas referencias al escenario y la época se suman a su vez al carácter fantástico que, de nuevo, no hace sino reafirmarnos en la convicción de que estamos leyendo un cuento de hadas moderno. Pero no una de esas nuevas versiones edulcoradas, sino más bien uno de los antiguos, de esos en los que lo macabro y lo siniestro no se escondían y en los que ningún protagonista tenía asegurado el éxito final. La intuición bastante temprana de la solución del misterio no le resta interés a la narración. As they approach Oneiros, Ivan, their biologist researcher, along with the bacteria he had been studying, disappears. The Book Collector shows a wry and sly mind at work throughout. Scottish literature would be thinner without this kind of challenging and cleverly-wrought writing.

But The Book Collector is not to be mistaken for one of those controversial, twisted retellings; in fact, it's curious how little it does to subvert the traditional narrative. Violet questions her situation, but rarely thinks of breaking free, and is convinced of Archie's superior intellect and the legitimacy of his power over her. Equally, no reader is likely to be surprised by the identity of the killer. Thompson's modifications are more subtle: a brutal flash of violence here, an anachronistic reference to a 'surrealist painting' there (the story is supposedly set in the Edwardian era). These touches seem deliberately designed to disconcert the reader, making everything about Violet's world seem a little off-kilter. From the opening paragraphs, there is a disturbing distortion of reality. The narrative swivels from one thing to the next without apparent logic, as though Artemis herself is hallucinating. There is little for the reader to cling to. So much of what they find on the Moon appears to be manifestations of the previous astronauts’ imaginations or dreams. What happened to them? But I still stand beside my rating that I did quite like this book. It has some very gruesome, dark and delicious moments as well as some very interesting themes. While this book doesn’t have any supernatural elements, it is definitely a horror read. Interviewer of the Year – British Journalism Awards". awards-bja.pressgazette.co.uk . Retrieved 29 January 2023.Alice Thompson’s gripping, deep space novel sees scientist and dream investigator Artemis travelling to the distant moon of Oneiros. Her ship, the Chimera has been sent to look for organisms that will help assuage Earth’s global warming, but it becomes clear on the journey that there are other disturbing reasons for the mission.