Afterland

Critics Review

• A smartly written thriller that opens with a satisfying bang . . . splendid

  New York Times

• Powerful and intelligent, with some unexpectedly trenchant humour, this welcome addition to the no-longer-so-speculative pandemic subgenre has plenty to say about grief, love, family ties and gender roles

  Guardian

• Bowstring-taut, visceral, and incredibly timely: Beukes’s plague-tale is a parable about the glory and terror of Americanism in times of calamity

  Cory Doctorow, author of Walkaway and Little Brother

• Lauren Beukes is a writer with a startling imagination, and a masterful ability to rewrite the rules of whatever genre she turns to; and now, right on time, she has turned to dystopian plague

  Ben Winters, author of Underground Airlines and Golden State

• Five years in writing, this intelligent speculative novel about a pandemic feels alarmingly close to home

  Metro

• You can’t imagine how quickly the world can change in six months – there probably isn’t a more resonant sentence to be found in any other novel published this year. A fast-moving thriller [that] splices gut-punching action sequences and feminist gender politics with an impressively light touch. Bubbles with big ideas. This intelligent speculative novel about a pandemic feels alarmingly close to home

  Metro

• Afterland is that rare creature, a ripping tale that neither shies away from big questions nor interesting answers

  New Scientist

• Teases out the deep familial currents that run through its relationships, explores gender and reminds us that dystopian fiction can be seriously grown-up entertainment

  SFX

• Afterland could not be more timely or terrifying . . . An excellent example of the prophetic nature of speculative fiction. Lauren Beukes is one of the most innovative and provocative writers on the contemporary scene

  Scotland on Sunday

• (A) timely thriller

  i paper

• Perfect lockdown reading

  Herald

• Praise for Lauren Beukes

  -

• Unreservedly recommended

  Joe Hill

• Brilliant … engrossing … I will be looking forward to whatever Lauren Beukes does next. She’s a major, major talent

  A Song of Ice and Fire

• Scary as hell and hypnotic. I couldn’t put it down

  Stephen King

• I’m all over it

  Gone Girl

• Utterly original, beautifully written, and I must say, it creeped the holy bejasus out of me. This is something special

  Tana French

• Masterful. Lauren Beukes is very *very* good

  William Gibson

• A new kind of thriller. A dark, relentless, time-twisting, page-turning. It shines

  Matt Haig