Michel Faber

Theo, upon finding a fifth Gospel, becomes an overnight sensation. He is beloved, he is hated, but more than that he is an ordinary man propelled into extraordinary circumstances. Theo's pragmatic and plebeian concerns make the book funny, cringey and completely relatable. The ending, where Theo is confronted with the consequences of his actions, is marvellous: part redemption, part sorrow, part relief, it is the crystallization of what makes humanity beautiful after the worst has been show more described.
This is a little masterpiece that shows how our faith and beliefs shape our worlds. show less

Set in 1870s London, Crimson Petal and the White is a brilliantly plotted chronicle of the collision between high and low, as played out in the complex relationship between would-be writer and whoremaster, William Rackham, heir to a perfume-maker’s fortune and and Machievellian prostitute, Sugar, whose special erotic talents arouse Rackham to the extent that he installs her in his home as his young daughter’s governess. In her spare time, Sugar is writing a Gothic revenge novel into show more which she pours her caustic hatred of the human race in general and men in particular. She becomes convinced this novel will expose the double standards which allow men to seek out and use prostitutes without risking damage to their reputations but at the same time decree that the women are beyond the pale of civilized society forever..

This novel is almost 900 pages so there are a great many characters, most of them unlikable but all of them mesmerizing. In addition to Sugar and William Rackham, we meet his fascinating wife, Agnes, suffering from “female hysteria”; William’s priggish brother Henry, who wishes to reform prostitutes but suffers from “nightmares of erotic disgrace”; Rescue Society devotee Emmeline Fox; prostitute madam Mrs. Castaway; and William’s companions in the degradation of women, Bodley and Ashwell. William’s inexplicable recovery of love for his wife and eventual dismissal of Sugar will lead to a climactic revenge.

There’s a lot of sex in The Crimson Petal and the White, but while most of it is extremely graphic and some of it is pretty repugnant, none of it comes anywhere close to being either erotic or pornographic. The Crimson Petal and the White is an extraordinary and vivid books but not for everyone. You’ll need a strong stomach in places, but I guarantee you’ll never forget Sugar. show less

Both the book and its film adaptation get the same rating from me. A female serial killer who sends the men she targets to a dreadful fate is a terrific inversion of the bog-standard female-as-victim trope that I am mortally sick of. It's telling that the only way this is allowed to happen is if the female in question is an alien. A human female serial killer? Unthinkable!

My eyes finally rolling back to the position where I can see to type, I'll say this for Faber's now -23-year-old novel show more and its ten-year-old film adaptation: the thoughts each provokes are deep and discomfiting ones about the nature of our unquestioned place as the apex of all things, as males and as humans. show less

Missionary on a New World

In a nutshell, a mysterious company in the near future has set up a colony on a planet that pretty much resembles the Great Plains during the dust bowl of the 30s, but featuring wind wheels of rain instead of scouring top soil. The company populates their settlement with practical, skillful people, most of whom have finished with abusing themselves and who, in a mighty authorial conceit, possess no sense of awe and adventure at living on an alien world, one also show more lightly populated by an indigenous people. These people, who may number a thousand, keep entirely to themselves, dress in flowing pastel robes the myriad hues of which challenge the color scale. These folk are slight of stature, wear well-made gloves and booties, and exhibit a thirst for Jesus and the promise of eternal life. Therein lies the secret to their vulnerability and limited numbers, which with patience you'll either discern or discover as you get within hailing distance of page 500.

To satisfy these people, the company searches for a pastor to minister to them. That pastor is Peter (get it). Peter's had a heck of a life, what with drug addiction, alcoholism, and thievery on his resume. But, fortunately, a good woman saved him, a nurse (another get it) who nurtures him while he is in hospital, and who then leads him to Christ. While the world, as is always its wont in speculative fiction, goes to hell in a hand basket, Peter and Bea labor at saving their little patch of earth in England. Once chosen by the company, Peter travels to the world, named Oasis, and provides the salve yearned for by the Oasans. While he attends to his religious duties, we plucky readers learn about the company employees, the colony, Oasis, and the Oasans through his eyes, which, at least for us since Shogun, is always an appealing attraction that keeps us tethered to the bitter end.

Like the wheeling Oasan rain, lots spins around in Faber's very long fable: faith, belief, passion for life, devotion, and, above all, love. That love is Peter's for the people he meets, for the Oasans he devotes himself to (and who respond to him with adoration), and for his wife, who remained on an Earth in maelstrom. We readers observe the strain on their relationship through the letters they shoot back and forth to each over. And, it's about the choices life hands us, for Peter, happy and fulfilled on Oasis, must choose between his faraway adopted home and his Earth home and Bea.

Is The Book of Strange New Things a book you will like? If you require your aliens to be vicious and warlike, or your alien worlds teeming with danger, or your science to be spot on, or your characters to have more emotions that just mawkish sentiment, well, perhaps you will not. If you like a new age feel, or if you have faith, or if you like the idea of not engaging in intergalactic warfare, yes, maybe you will. Something everybody who reads even a bit of Faber's book will agree on: it possesses the virtue of good writing, good enough to drag the most reluctant reader to that shining object in the distance, that glorious page 500. show less