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Digital Audiobook
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

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Zoo City

Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date
2 February 2023
Run Time
9 hours 13 minutes
Format
Audiobook

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

WINNER OF THE 2011 ARTHUR C CLARKE AWARD

Lauren Beukes' tale of a young woman trapped in a brutal city but looking for a way out . . .


Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheque, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons.

Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions reside.

Instead it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives - including her own.


'A major, major talent' George R. R. Martin

'Beukes is very *very* good. It feels effortless, utterly accomplished' William Gibson

'Beukes brings a secret tenderness and humanity to her off-kilter portrait of the here and now' Guardian

'Exquisitely paced and impeccably controlled. An enormously satisfying novel' New York Times Book Review

© Lauren Beukes 2018 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

  • [Beukes] brings a secret tenderness and humanity to her off-kilter portrait of the here and now

    Guardian

  • Lauren Beukes is very, *very* good. It feels effortless. Utterly accomplished

    William Gibson

  • A fabulous outing from an extremely promising writer ... [It] has so much fabulous wordplay, imaginative settings and scenarios, and such a dark and cynical heart that I was totally riveted by it

    Cory Doctorow

  • Beukes's energetic noir phantasmagoria ... crackles with original ideas ... Beukes skilfully employs all the twists of first-rate noir ... powerful indeed

    Jeff Vandermeer, New York Times

See more reviews
  • Beukes delivers a thrill ride that gleefully merges narrative styles and tropes, almost single-handedly pulling the "urban fantasy" subgenre back towards its groundbreaking roots

    Publishers Weekly

  • Energetic and imaginative ... Packed with colour, dark humour and thought-provoking ideas, Zoo City is an absolute must for anyone with a taste for the wilder edges of the genre

    SFX Magazine

  • Original and unputdownable

    Cosmopolitan

  • An unpredictable and helluva awesome read

    Heat

  • Lauren Beukes is Jeff Noon crossed with Raymond Chandler. I loved it, it's going to be huge

    Paul Cornell

  • I couldn't put this down. It's weird, thrilling, funny... filled with sleazy characters and lots of bad attitude

    Mike Nicol

User Reviews

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Details

Author
Lauren Beukes
Narrator
Qondiswa James
Duration
9 hours 13 minutes
Release Date
2 February 2023
ISBN
9781405941754
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd
Genre
Urban fantasy, Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary, Science fiction: near future, Science fiction: steampunk, Dystopian and utopian fiction, Technothriller

Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE 2011 ARTHUR C CLARKE AWARDLauren Beukes' tale of a young woman trapped in a brutal city but looking for a way out . . .Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheque, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons.Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions reside.Instead it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives - including her own.'A major, major talent' George R. R. Martin'Beukes is very *very* good. It feels effortless, utterly accomplished' William Gibson'Beukes brings a secret tenderness and humanity to her off-kilter portrait of the here and now' Guardian'Exquisitely paced and impeccably controlled. An enormously satisfying novel' New York Times Book Review© Lauren Beukes 2018 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

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