Angela Meyer
Author of A Superior Spectre
Works by Angela Meyer
Obsolescence - story 1 copy
Associated Works
The Lifted Brow #6 — Contributor — 6 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- novelist
short story writer
essayist
publisher
literary reviewer
bookseller - Organizations
- Echo Publishing
- Nationality
- Australia
- Places of residence
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia - Associated Place (for map)
- Australia
Members
Reviews
Moon Sugar is the latest release from Melbourne author Angela Meyer. Following her debut flash fiction collection Captives (2014, see my review), came her first novel, the award-winning A Superior Spectre (2018, see my review). Like A Superior Spectre, Moon Sugar is a genre-bending novel, and it shares some of the same preoccupations, venturing into a frightening future that might not be within our control. The new novel further develops Angela's interest in masculinity, gender and show more neuroscience, but in the wake of pandemic lockdowns it also explores the precariousness of modern life under the corrupting power of late capitalism.
In negotiations about knowledge-sharing, Meyer depicts the billionaire's natural inclination for profit in competition with balancing those opportunities with the greater good.
The central character is Mila, 40, financially vulnerable and single not by choice. Coming on top of getting into (HECS) debt with various arts degrees. the disruption caused by the pandemic has hit her finances hard. She's a fitness instructor who had to pivot her classes online, and now she has a dwindling $11,000 in the bank, and a 2008 Mazda. At an age when most of the previous generation were secure in home ownership, she's renting, and like too many in the modern economy, she knows that homelessness beckons if she can't make the rent. (There are parents as a potential backup, but her relationship with them isn't great.) The biological clock is ticking, but a hopeful relationship with Scott failed. He was the one she'd hoped would bring the comfort of intimacy and the longed-for child. She turns to an online dating app with a difference. SugarMeetMe connects young male sex workers with older women, and that's how she meets Josh.
Though she struggles to pay for it, Mila enjoys the transactional sex and paid commitment to meeting her needs but this relationship seems to be developing into more than that. And her finances improve when she joins Josh in some confidential medical research — and they get paid for it by people she recognises as egoists with a God-complex.
Shortly after this, however, Josh goes missing while on a trip to Europe, just before he's due to meet up with his best mate Kyle. The authorities write it off as a suicide, and that sets Kyle and Mila off to Europe as amateur sleuths who try to track down his movements, hack into his apps and question his contacts.
However...
These familiar elements of a crime novel (incompetent, disinterested police; wily amateurs) are offset by an introductory SF chapter which lurks in the back of the reader's mind. Set 24 years ago, it features John, an astronaut covertly researching a mysterious lichen. It had been accidentally irradiated while he and his partner Rick were on a mission, distracted from their safety checks by competitive games to impress Sally back at ground control. Back on earth, the lichen has unexpected effects not entirely benign:
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/10/30/moon-sugar-by-angela-meyer/ show less
In negotiations about knowledge-sharing, Meyer depicts the billionaire's natural inclination for profit in competition with balancing those opportunities with the greater good.
[Mila] thinks about those studies that Kyle mentioned, about how power causes psychological corruption. 'How do you decide what good is? In beating your competitors to market, don't you sometimes suppress ideas that could be even more helpful? Or more affordable? (p.208)
The central character is Mila, 40, financially vulnerable and single not by choice. Coming on top of getting into (HECS) debt with various arts degrees. the disruption caused by the pandemic has hit her finances hard. She's a fitness instructor who had to pivot her classes online, and now she has a dwindling $11,000 in the bank, and a 2008 Mazda. At an age when most of the previous generation were secure in home ownership, she's renting, and like too many in the modern economy, she knows that homelessness beckons if she can't make the rent. (There are parents as a potential backup, but her relationship with them isn't great.) The biological clock is ticking, but a hopeful relationship with Scott failed. He was the one she'd hoped would bring the comfort of intimacy and the longed-for child. She turns to an online dating app with a difference. SugarMeetMe connects young male sex workers with older women, and that's how she meets Josh.
Though she struggles to pay for it, Mila enjoys the transactional sex and paid commitment to meeting her needs but this relationship seems to be developing into more than that. And her finances improve when she joins Josh in some confidential medical research — and they get paid for it by people she recognises as egoists with a God-complex.
This is how the world is increasingly run: cashed-up idealists who are in too much of a rush to properly consider any long-term projects, wanting to be heroes of the people in the moment, be the first and best. (p.129)
Shortly after this, however, Josh goes missing while on a trip to Europe, just before he's due to meet up with his best mate Kyle. The authorities write it off as a suicide, and that sets Kyle and Mila off to Europe as amateur sleuths who try to track down his movements, hack into his apps and question his contacts.
However...
These familiar elements of a crime novel (incompetent, disinterested police; wily amateurs) are offset by an introductory SF chapter which lurks in the back of the reader's mind. Set 24 years ago, it features John, an astronaut covertly researching a mysterious lichen. It had been accidentally irradiated while he and his partner Rick were on a mission, distracted from their safety checks by competitive games to impress Sally back at ground control. Back on earth, the lichen has unexpected effects not entirely benign:
The lichen at least helped him understand the way Sally, he, his daughter, even Rick were all connected and continuing atoms and gases, infinite universes opening out from each moment. And yet, he still has to cope with being here, now, without her corporeal form. (p.3)
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/10/30/moon-sugar-by-angela-meyer/ show less
Science fiction meets historical fiction in A Superior Spectre by debut Australian author Angela Meyer.
In the near future Jeff is dying from an un-named medical condition and seeks solace to suffer and die alone in his shame. But he's not completely alone, as he takes a companion android and a piece of technology that allows him to see through the eyes of a person in history. Jeff is an unlikeable protagonist, and I didn't warm to him or his plight at all but I think that's the point.
Jeff show more forms a connection with Leonora, a young woman living in the Scottish Highlands who is slowly becoming a woman and is sent to live with her Aunt in Edinburgh. We experience Leonora's life through Jeff's experiences and I found her chapters the most compelling.
I have to disagree with the promotion for this novel as blending “the historical richness of Outlander with the powerful dystopian feminism of Margaret Atwood”.
I don't see anything of Outlander in this novel. There is no romance between the characters, and if anything, Leonora believes she is cursed or possessed when she becomes aware of Jeff's presence. The only tenuous link between the two is time travel, but our protagonist doesn't actually time travel, he just witnesses chunks of time in Leonora's life. Outlander travels back in time to Scotland in the 1740s, and Leonora is living in the Scottish Highlands in the late 1860s, so this comparison is misleading.
I also didn't find this novel to be dystopian or feminist so have no idea why it's being compared to the writing of Margaret Atwood. My guess is that this novel is hard to categorise or pigeonhole and that's a good thing. It should be able to stand on its own and comparing it to popular works in this way actually does the reader a disservice.
Being a fan of historical fiction, I wasn't surprised to find myself wrapped up in Leonora's story and wishing she had a book of her own. I was fascinated by the group of like-minded people Leonora stumbles across and definitely wanted more of this. I could easily have done without Jeff and his selfish behaviour, although the android assistant/companion aspect was interesting.
A Superior Spectre is recommended for readers interested in a science fiction meets historical fiction mash-up.
* Copy courtesy of Ventura Press * show less
In the near future Jeff is dying from an un-named medical condition and seeks solace to suffer and die alone in his shame. But he's not completely alone, as he takes a companion android and a piece of technology that allows him to see through the eyes of a person in history. Jeff is an unlikeable protagonist, and I didn't warm to him or his plight at all but I think that's the point.
Jeff show more forms a connection with Leonora, a young woman living in the Scottish Highlands who is slowly becoming a woman and is sent to live with her Aunt in Edinburgh. We experience Leonora's life through Jeff's experiences and I found her chapters the most compelling.
I have to disagree with the promotion for this novel as blending “the historical richness of Outlander with the powerful dystopian feminism of Margaret Atwood”.
I don't see anything of Outlander in this novel. There is no romance between the characters, and if anything, Leonora believes she is cursed or possessed when she becomes aware of Jeff's presence. The only tenuous link between the two is time travel, but our protagonist doesn't actually time travel, he just witnesses chunks of time in Leonora's life. Outlander travels back in time to Scotland in the 1740s, and Leonora is living in the Scottish Highlands in the late 1860s, so this comparison is misleading.
I also didn't find this novel to be dystopian or feminist so have no idea why it's being compared to the writing of Margaret Atwood. My guess is that this novel is hard to categorise or pigeonhole and that's a good thing. It should be able to stand on its own and comparing it to popular works in this way actually does the reader a disservice.
Being a fan of historical fiction, I wasn't surprised to find myself wrapped up in Leonora's story and wishing she had a book of her own. I was fascinated by the group of like-minded people Leonora stumbles across and definitely wanted more of this. I could easily have done without Jeff and his selfish behaviour, although the android assistant/companion aspect was interesting.
A Superior Spectre is recommended for readers interested in a science fiction meets historical fiction mash-up.
* Copy courtesy of Ventura Press * show less
This cleverly titled novel is an intriguing mix of gothic psychological thriller and dystopian science fiction. In A Superior Spectre Meyer explores the inner workings of the mind, the home of desires and passions deemed unseemly either by society, their hosts, or both; offering up through creative extrapolation, the personal insight that may be gained by experiencing the world in another’s shoes.
Meyer’s dark and often disturbing depiction of the physical impact Jeff’s self-inflicted show more shame has on the otherwise strong-willed and free-thinking Leonara, serves as a powerful metaphor for the unseen control myriad day-to-day decisions of disclosure wield in relationships. Read full review >> show less
Meyer’s dark and often disturbing depiction of the physical impact Jeff’s self-inflicted show more shame has on the otherwise strong-willed and free-thinking Leonara, serves as a powerful metaphor for the unseen control myriad day-to-day decisions of disclosure wield in relationships. Read full review >> show less
* I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book. *
Jeff is dying. He flees from his home in Australia to the north of Scotland so that he can die alone, haunted by the secrets of his past. He takes with him an experimental technology that allows him to inhabit the mind of another person, in another time. While he has been warned not to overuse it, it is a temptation that he struggles to resist.
Leonora is a young woman living in the Highlands in show more 1860. Living alone with her widowed father on a small farm, Leonora likes nothing more than the company of animals. However, her father remarries and sends her to Edinburgh to live with her aunt and prepare herself for the seemingly inevitable marriage.
Leonora starts to sense intrusions into her mind, seeing visions and hearing unusual music. She suspects that these are some kind of spiritualist experiences and seeks help. She also feels drawn towards some medical students that she encounters at the university, company that her aunt does not approve of.
Meyer touches on issues of gender fluidity, class differences, the dawn of feminism, the exploitation of women, the imminence of death, the abuse of technology and a few other weighty concepts, all in the space of about 350 pages. Her characterisations are excellent. Leonora is easy to feel for, a fairly typical historical romance heroine. Meyer does very well to present the fundamentally flawed person that is Jeff in a light that does not lead to the visceral rejection you might expect. I was surprised at the degree of empathy that I felt for him.
This is a really good debut from an Australian author of great promise. show less
Jeff is dying. He flees from his home in Australia to the north of Scotland so that he can die alone, haunted by the secrets of his past. He takes with him an experimental technology that allows him to inhabit the mind of another person, in another time. While he has been warned not to overuse it, it is a temptation that he struggles to resist.
Leonora is a young woman living in the Highlands in show more 1860. Living alone with her widowed father on a small farm, Leonora likes nothing more than the company of animals. However, her father remarries and sends her to Edinburgh to live with her aunt and prepare herself for the seemingly inevitable marriage.
Leonora starts to sense intrusions into her mind, seeing visions and hearing unusual music. She suspects that these are some kind of spiritualist experiences and seeks help. She also feels drawn towards some medical students that she encounters at the university, company that her aunt does not approve of.
Meyer touches on issues of gender fluidity, class differences, the dawn of feminism, the exploitation of women, the imminence of death, the abuse of technology and a few other weighty concepts, all in the space of about 350 pages. Her characterisations are excellent. Leonora is easy to feel for, a fairly typical historical romance heroine. Meyer does very well to present the fundamentally flawed person that is Jeff in a light that does not lead to the visceral rejection you might expect. I was surprised at the degree of empathy that I felt for him.
This is a really good debut from an Australian author of great promise. show less
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 7
- Also by
- 2
- Members
- 75
- Popularity
- #235,803
- Rating
- 3.3
- Reviews
- 10
- ISBNs
- 21