Night of the Animals

Starred review from May 23, 2016
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.

This is an extraordinary audiobook, and Ralph Lister's narration is splendid. Lister seamlessly gives talking sand cats and hissing jackals persuasive vocalizations and nuanced speech. He does spot-on British accents in this futuristic reimagining of Noah's Arc. Bill Broun's fascinating novel takes place in 2052 London, portraying a dystopian future in which humans have killed off nearly all wildlife. This audiobook follows the trials and exploits of Cuthbert Handley, an addled 90-year-old antihero who can talk with animals and sets out to free the last survivors from the London Zoo--the sole remaining zoo in the world. Lister is a vocal chameleon, equally adroit with dozens of voices. His talent is well displayed in this immersive and haunting tale. A.D.M. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Starred review from June 1, 2016

Broun's debut is a fascinating work set in a detailed dystopian future. Multiple footnotes help readers decipher the obscure dialect of main character Cuthbert, an extremely aged indigent man who would be dead without modern medical advances. He is also an insane drug addict bent on setting the animals free from the London Zoo. This Britain of the future is ruled by a despotic king, Harry9, intent on maintaining control and resisting the resurgence of an American cult, Heaven's Gate, which is encouraging mass suicide. In this world where the powerless can be indiscriminately killed or institutionalized, Cuthbert has so far been protected by his physician, Dr. Bajwa. The novel slowly advances our understanding of Cuthbert, Dr. Bajwa, and a bizarre but familiar setting. The story then switches viewpoints to Astrid, a female police officer responding to Cuthbert's liberation of the animals at the zoo. There follows a surprising conclusion where unlikely allies confront the forces of Heaven's Gate. VERDICT This highly recommended, original tour de force creates a richly imagined realm that evokes Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil while maintaining a sense of wonder.--Henry Bankhead, San Rafael P.L., CA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2016
An Orwellian debut explodes ancient lore and contemporary technology to create a prescient, terrifying dystopia. In 2052, Britain has become an extreme surveillance state with pre-Victorian levels of brutal poverty. King Henry IX, aka Harry9, controls the news through WikiNous, the Internet transmitted through flesh. Alerts, text messages, and spam scroll across citizens' corneas, with incoming messages flashing colors like a migraine aura. The ability to opt out of the spam is only available to the wealthiest. Meanwhile, with the impending arrival of the comet Urga-Rampos, Heaven's Gate, a California-based cult run by Marshall Applewhite III, is trying to kill all of the world's animals and perform mass suicides, an increasingly appealing prospect for the large Indigent class. Homeless 90-year-old Cuthbert Handley sets out to free the animals of the London Zoo. Suffering from an addiction to Flot, a legal hallucinogenic with crippling withdrawal symptoms, Cuthbert believes the animals are talking to him and hopes they will help him find his brother Drystan, who drowned in 1968 and who may or may not be the Christ of the Otters. Dr. Bajwa, Cuthbert's physician, worries Cuthbert's delusions will get him locked away in a Calm House with a Nexar hood that would "smooth and desplinter brain activity like a kind of mental woodplane." Conveniently, Dr. Bajwa is an amateur solarcopter pilot. This plot device is the one creak in an otherwise highly immersive narrative. The language of the novel crackles with energy, nimbly drawing on Old English, regional dialects and slang, and speculative future language. The worlds' religions--paganism, Christianity, Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, Yoruba--fuse together in a luminous supernatural force which buoys forward poor Cuthbert, who, despite the risk of multiple-organ failure, doggedly pursues his mission to keep the voices of the animals alive. An impressive, richly imagined, deeply urgent story.

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Starred review from June 1, 2016
The year is 2052 and Earth, not surprisingly, has gone to hell. Humans have become a weird concoction of biology and technology, personal freedom is but a vague memory, and resources are stretched beyond the breaking point. Into this chaos reemerges the suicidal Heaven's Gate cult of the late 1990s, their resurgence timed to coincide with the appearance of the newly discovered Urga-Rampos comet. To ensure that cultists get their place on the spaceship they believe is hidden within the comet, they think they must destroy the planet's other life formsnamely, animals. As the comet nears, all animals that remain are the inhabitants of the London Zoo. Their survival is dependent upon a 90-year-old substance abuser named Cuthbert Handley, whose signature skill is understanding animal language, and whose dying wish is to be reunited with his dead brother, whom he believes is still alive. Bolt cutters in hand, Cuthbert breaks into the zoo, intent upon freeing the animals and discovering his brother's whereabouts. Imaginative, fast-paced, thoughtful, and awash in laser-like imagery, debut novelist Broun's phantasmagorical fable vibrantly blends myth and satire to paint both a cautionary warning about present behavior and a futuristic vision of what the unbridled abuse of nature might unveil. For fans of Lydia Millet and Margaret Atwood.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)