Richard Calder Knihy

Set against a backdrop of a future gender war, this trilogy explores the intersections of technology, identity, and reality. The narrative follows star-crossed teens whose remarkable transformations challenge conventional understanding. Central to the story is the theme of love, which emerges as the unifying force in a world marked by conflict and change. The imaginative scope of the plot invites readers to contemplate the boundaries of human experience and connection.

It's the 21st century and "Dead Girls" have become the hunted. Half-human, half-gynoid, they know no refuge--and to love one is something far more deadly. For Ignatz, Dead Girl Primavera is the ultimate seduction. But now, Primavera is infected with the magic dust. With her powers ebbing, a descent into necropolis of Bangkok's Big Weird is their last hope. Martin's Press.

Raul Riviera is Impakto - an aborted child who refused to die. But he has not realised this for forty years, until he is approached by another such on a flight back to his home in the Philippines. And now his life begins anew… Rebuilt like a grand guignol Six Million Dollar Man after the plane he is travelling in crashes, Riviera and his artificer, Maximillia Morales, journey through unknown regions to destroy both the lords of his own, impakto world, and the King of Heaven who created them. Through demons, angels and to the very gates of Heaven themselves, Raul Riviera stalks his enemies and pursues his love - Maximillia.

Richard Calder's offbeat blend of SF, sexuality and surrealism began with his debut novel Dead Girls, Dead Boys, Dead Things. Malignos introduces a 53rd-century Earth where technology has lapsed thanks to invading, transforming "perversion" from outside our universe. New races have spun off from humanity, malignos in the traditional shapes of demons--horned, scaled, sometimes bat-winged, and mostly exiled to a vast, artificial underworld. Antihero Richard Pike is a professional killer and insufferable snob who finds female malignos sexually irresistible, and has shacked up with Gala, one of the few who lives above ground. He loves her so much that he rents out her body and lives on the earnings. Then Gala's past catches up, and to rescue her from drug-induced mindlessness Pike faces a literal journey to the centre of the earth. The path descends through exotic wonders: a freak show of caged humans, flying swarms of hungry child malignos, awesome cities and seas, shadow-beings and chimeras, a descent through the maelstrom to a tropical Torrid Zone, semi-magical tricks with space and gravity whose secret is long lost--and at the core the city or world of Pandemonium, where all answers await. Pike suffers considerably, usually through his own folly: pursuing sexily demonic girls leads him into traps, and he's repeatedly told (often comically, and sometimes by himself) what a bastard he is. He betters himself a little, though, and carries his underworld quest to an unexpected end. Calder's darkly poetic imagination and rich landscape-building make for enjoyable reading. --David Langford

A remarkable, dazzling novel from a British author at the cutting edge of contemporary science fiction