Smaill, Anna
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1979- ) New Zealand author whose first novel, The Chimes (2015), artfully conceals its distant Near Future setting in a London which may be viewed as a Dystopia, as it is oppressively guild-dominated and under something like a curse, which may be nothing more than the effects of twenty-first century global despoliation. At the same time, however, a detailed and subtle Equipoisal overlay allows a fantasy reading of the Amnesia-afflicted population, for which melodies and patterns of Music provide the only social and personal narratives available to anyone. Any echoes of Gene Wolfe's Latro sequence are absorbed in the music of an entirely different world, though it is indeed a world forgotten each night. The Chimes won the World Fantasy Award for best novel in 2016. [JC]
Anna Smaill
born Auckland, New Zealand: April 1979
works
- The Chimes (London: Sceptre, 2015) [hb/Rich Gemmell]
links
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