I’m off to the British Library this Saturday for another trip around the Out of This World Science-Fiction Exhibition and this time, I have got myself tickets to the ZOO CITY at the British Library. Considering Zoo City
by Lauren Beurke
has been my favorite read of the year (and winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award) it’s time to write a review! "Zinzi December 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 paycheck, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons."
Set in the gritty underbelly of a fantastical Johannesburg of the future, Zoo City would be a Sprawl if this was a SF - but it’s not, it’s an urban fantasy. Furthermore, it’s not a YA urban fantasy, it’s an adult fantasy – well written, edgy and brilliant. Thank God. Lauren Beurke has put the credibility back in a genre that has recently been tainted by too many badly written and overhyped paranormal romances.
Zinzi December is a down and out ex-druggie, ex-journalist with a Sloth on her back and a rare ability to find lost items. In Zoo City, criminals are lumbered with animals – a manifestation of their guilt to constantly and shamefully bear. The Zoo Plague, or AAF (Acquired Aposymbiotic Familiarism) reads like a clever rework of Pullmans daemons (His Dark Materials) and like Pullmans daemon you secretly really want one - even if it’s a cannibal penguin and particularly if it’s a Sloth.
The whole book reads like a noir thriller as Zinzi is forced to take on a dodgy job finding a missing person. Her investigation gets darker and more sordid the further she looks and ultimately she must consult her, sketchy conscious and moral code to decide whether she is going to follow through.
BUY ZOO CITY NOW
