My list of recommended works of imaginative fiction can be found here and presents 60 of the very best IF books published between 1818 and 2019.
However, my reading of imaginative fiction hasn’t ended there but continues both within that 201 year period and beyond. And indeed so far in the 2020s two new novels have particularly impressed me:
The first is a remarkable and memorable parable for the 21st Century, as humanity struggles with the greatest issue of its current existence, the inhumane categorisation of The Other in contemporary politics.
| Paris by Starlight | Robert Dinsdale | 2020 |
Every city has its own magic…
Every night on their long journey to Paris from their troubled homeland, Levon’s grandmother has read to them from a very special book. Called The Nocturne, it is a book full of fairy stories and the heroic adventures of their people who generations before chose to live by starlight. And with every story that Levon’s grandmother tells them in their new home, the desire to live as their ancestors did grows. And that is when the magic begins…
Nobody can explain why nocturnal water dogs start appearing at the heels of every citizen of Paris-by-Starlight like the loyal retainers they once were. There are suddenly night finches in the skies and the city is transforming: the Eiffel Tower lit up by strange ethereal flowers that drink in the light of the moon.
But not everyone in Paris is won over by the spectacle of Paris-by-Starlight. There are always those that fear the other, the unexplained, the strangers in our midst. How long can the magic of night rub up against the ordinariness of day? How long can two worlds occupy the same streets and squares before there is an outright war?
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