Night of the Animals

Broun’s debut novel mixes mystical and maniacal forces in a swirl of futuristic imagery featuring talking animals. In 2052, the last great repository of animals on Earth is the London Zoo. The Heaven’s Gate suicide cult has been systematically exterminating wildlife, along with themselves, in a search for a higher plane of existence. At the same time, nonagenarian Cuthbert Handley, addicted to a hallucinogen called Flot, searches for Drystan, his lost brother. With the comet Urga-Rampos in the sky, Cuthbert hears the voices of animals as his search leads him to the zoo, where an all-consuming desire to free the talkative creatures seizes him. Surrounding Cuthbert is a Britain under the totalitarian regime of Henry IX, or Henry9 as he is known on WikiNous, the heavily regulated network that has replaced the Internet. As Cuthbert works his way through the zoo, snapping chain-links with bolt cutters, he converses with the jackals, penguins, and an articulate sand cat as he looks for his brother and an elusive otter prince. Through precise and eloquent prose and a hint of political satire, Broun creates a near future filled with bioelectric technology and characters with patois as diverse as their desires. Broun’s novel is strange, witty, and engrossing, skipping through madness and into the realm of myth. (July)