Book description
Named a book of the year 2022 by the Sunday Times, The Times, Guardian, Irish Times, New Statesman, BBC and Waterstones 'One of the best science fiction short stories to be published in the 21st century so far' SFX Review 'Saunders is funny and kind as ever, and his narrative…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Liberation Day as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
The stories are so funny and humane and poignant and shocking and entertaining and compassionate and surprising, all at the same time. Who doesn't love George Saunders? He has become one of our great literary figures. Importantly, I believe he is also a nice man. I think this because of interviews and lectures I have seen him give. Also, a sense of decency--coupled with wild humor and some adolescent silliness--runs through his writing.
I love how George Saunders creates really weird alternate realities, but doesn’t make a big deal about it.
In Liberation Day, we learn about the inner lives of people who seem to be enslaved by being “pinioned” to a wall after they’ve been programmed to perform as storytellers for their owners. Because we’re learning about this world from the pinioned narrator, we are not subjected to any lecturing or moralizing about the situation.
Instead, we hear about his romantic yearning for his owner’s wife, and that’s the tension around which the story is built. He only gives us the details…
From Christine's list on engaging in world-building.
If you love Liberation Day...
The Fatness
Keelan Cavanaugh is fat. That’s why the government put him in prison.
They placed him in a Calorie Reduction Centre (CRC), where trained staff work to help him and many others slim down. Well, that was the intention, anyway. The powers that be had decided chubby citizens must either go…
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