Cage of Souls: Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020

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Synopsis

Humanity clings to life on a dying Earth in an epic, far-future science fiction novel from an award-winning author. The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar , last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity. Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani : rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in the verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will meet with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?

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Cage of Souls: Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020: content & age rating

Intended for adult readers (18+).

This far-future literary SF contains strong violence involving monsters and mutants, imprisonment, survival situations in hostile environments, and dark thematic material about humanity's extinction. The tone is bleak and philosophical.