Sleepwalking

Morgan, author of the vividly imagined Mondays Are Red and Fleshmarket, sets her third novel many generations in the future. Much of the UK has become a closely controlled metropolis, in which de-cultured 'Citizens' live out their lives in a bland blur of synthetic contentment. However, under the streets live the Outsiders, who preserve a fragile commitment to freedom. Between the two groups prowl the incompetent but murderous Pols, licensed to shoot the Outsiders on sight. The action begins when an elite band of young Outsiders, reared in the ruins of Balmoral by dissident scholars and poets, attempts to storm the control centre. Though this book has several credibility gaps, these are more than compensated for by its pace and the convincing way in which current societal trends are ominously projected. Liv, the powerful central character, soliloquises themes of longing and identity-loss. Ingenious intertextual threads cohere towards the climax (where the book's evocations of 1984 and Brave New World are shown to be no accident) and the cunning ending is not quite the ending. This is an excellent sci-fi thriller, which also manages to articulate a passionate plea for literacy and dissent.