Europe at Midnight

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Pub Date 12 Jan 2021 | Archive Date 16 Feb 2021

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Description

A visionary thriller of future espionage, murder, parallel realities and terrible secrets The Guardian said had “seemingly effortless literary flair.”

For an intelligence officer like Jim, today’s world is a nightmare.
 
The Xian Flu pandemic and ongoing economic crises have fractured the European Union and new nations are springing up everywhere, some literally overnight. Every week or so a friendly power spawns, or a new and unknown national entity which may not be friendly to England’s interests; it’s hard to keep on top of it all. And things are about to get worse for Jim.
 
A stabbing on a London bus pitches him into a world where his intelligence service is preparing for war with another universe, and a man has come who may hold the key to unlocking the mystery.
A visionary thriller of future espionage, murder, parallel realities and terrible secrets The Guardian said had “seemingly effortless literary flair.”

For an intelligence officer like Jim, today’s...

Advance Praise

"With seemingly effortless literary flair, Hutchinson reveals how the stories intersect in a complex, unsettling allegory of political manoeuvring, subterfuge and statecraft." The Guardian 

"Europe at Midnight is as rich and as relevant as its predecessor. It’s funny, fantastical, readable and remarkable regardless of your prior experience of the series." Tor.com 

“Hutchinson writes with wit and humanity and remarkable political nous. We sympathise with the characters because it is easy to see ourselves in them, struggling to live an ordinary life in circumstances that are never quite as ordinary as we might like them to be.” Locus 

“Hutchinson’s prose combines the dogged realism of Philip K Dick, the linguistic flair of China Miéville and the vision of Peter Higgins. Europe at Midnight is mind-expanding, accessible yet deeply layered fiction that anything those Pulitzer-, Man Booker- or Hugo-Award-winners could offer.” SF Book 

“Reading Europe at Midnight is a little like unlocking an insane Matryoshka doll. Each layer is exquisitely crafted on the surface, but it never fails to give way to an even more outlandish layer beneath... This is high-powered fiction of the cleverest sort.” LA Review of Books

"With seemingly effortless literary flair, Hutchinson reveals how the stories intersect in a complex, unsettling allegory of political manoeuvring, subterfuge and statecraft." The Guardian 

"Europe at...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781781088708
PRICE $11.99 (USD)
PAGES 304

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Average rating from 2 members


Featured Reviews

With Europe at Midnight, I found myself drawn into the narrative and interested in what was going on. I had the clear sense that I was unpacking a world and events that had preceded the opening pages, and that was fine by me. Every character, every world, has a history. It doesn’t start with page one. I trusted the history would be relevant to the plot, and that trust paid off in unexpected ways.

I haven’t read the first book in the Fractured Europe series, but it didn’t cause confusion for me with this narrative. What I liked about this story is that it created an intriguing world and then turned things on its head. Seemingly unrelated storylines wove together, and I couldn’t see all the outcomes from the start, but the foundation for those developments was built into the story subtly.

This is a story about spies and secrets. About parallel universes and double-crosses. About agendas and players, and people being played. I found it compelling on a spy thriller level as well as a sci-fi level. Hutchinson weaves the strengths of both genres together to give us something that’s just a little bit different from most other stories I’ve seen, and left me wondering where things were going.

The key characters had arcs, but I won’t discuss them in any detail here. To do so would involve spoilers. This is one of those times when I have to simply say you’ll either be interested in the characters’ stories, or you won’t, and that will likely make or break how well the book works for you overall. I didn’t always get the answers I initially thought I wanted as I read, but what I did get were a lot of surprises, and the novel kept me on my toes.

I did feel that the shifts between POV characters were spaced out too much. While this helps you really get your bearings with one character, switching gears abruptly after 15% is a significant shift, and you’re essentially starting the story all over again because you’re changing locations, dealing with different characters, and dealing with different events. Once I adapted to that approach, it was fine. It isn’t perhaps my favorite stylistic choice, but that’s a personal preference that ultimately didn’t keep me from blazing through this book.

I wish some of the female characters had more agency and involvement, but that’s also a personal preference.

Europe at Midnight also doesn’t shy away from realistic endings. By that, I mean not everyone will be satisfied with the resolution to this book, but I felt a chapter had been closed in a way that felt consistent with the work overall.

I believe Europe at Midnight will appeal to people who like unreliable narrators, political intrigue, just enough real world settings to scare your pants off, and possibilities that will make the Cold War of the 50s through the 80s seem trivial. It was an enjoyable book that drew me into the plot and kept me engaged. So much so that it even drew me back in when narrators changed and I read it in record time.

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