In this ambitious debut, Night of the Animals, Bill Broun demonstrates that he is more skilled than many seasoned novelists. Britain in 2052 is bleak, ruled by King Harry IX and split into two classes: New Aristocrats and Indigents. The Red Watch keeps have-nots in line with nasty neuralpikes, and healthcare is meted out according to class. Comet-worshipping suicide cults are on the rise, the most notorious of which wants to destroy the world's remaining animals.
The novel's hero is obese, 90-year-old Indigent Cuthbert Handley. Severely delusional and hopelessly addicted to the hallucinogenic booze Flōt, Cuthbert has long heard animals speaking to him. He also believes that his long-lost brother is alive and is the Christ of Otters, and that in order to find him, Cuthbert must free the animals from the London Zoo.
This is a rare pre-apocalyptic novel. One of its themes--that doom is abstract, distant and vague until it appears at one's doorstep--gives Night of the Animals heartbreaking urgency. Broun is a master of language, inventing a hybrid future dialect. Footnoted definitions are sometimes a distraction, as meanings can be gleaned from context, but this is a small quibble. He handles mental illness and addiction with sensitivity and humor, creating in Cuthbert a Quixote for the postmodern era. Night of the Animals is a compelling read, filled with pathos and among the best of today's literary science fiction. --Zak Nelson, writer and bookseller