The August Derleth Award is the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, and The Hollows has been shortlisted for it. I decided to read the other shortlisted novels and post my thoughts about them, so here goes. Today the spotlight falls on Full Immersion by my fellow Angry Robot author, Gemma Amor.
A traumatised woman with amnesia finds her own dead body and sets out to uncover the truth of her demise in a race against time, sanity, crumbling realities and the ever-present threat of the Silhouette.
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What can you do when you’re reeling from trauma but you’ve tried it all? Counselling, yoga, pills, meditation, art, healthy living… none of it makes a dent. What’s left?
Magpie is out of ideas. She’s desperate enough to try anything. Just when she thinks her life can get no worse, she discovers herself, or rather her own dead body, partially buried in the mudbank of a river. A man stands by, a familiar stranger. What does he want? And why can’t she remember getting here? Why can’t she remember anything?
Unbeknownst to her, two pairs of eyes watch from behind an observation screen, in a room filled with computers and sensors. An experiment is unfolding, but is Magpie the subject, or practitioner? Reality becomes a slippery concept. And beyond the glass is something worse still: a hint of an outline, shaped in darkness…
Magpie realises all too soon that her journey has transformed from healing to survival. She must become the hunter rather than the hunted, with her missing memories the prey.
In turn brutal, beautiful and absolutely terrifying, Full Immersion is the latest speculative horror from Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, Gemma Amor.
Disclaimer: It should, of course, go without saying, but this is my personal opinion and nothing more. Yours may be different, and that's cool.
Daniel's thoughts:
Like Sundial, this was a step outside my comfort zone, as I’ve never been keen on stories about virtual reality. And at first, I was worried. Don’t get me wrong: it was clear from the start that Full Immersion is original and inventive, and an immensely personal project for Gemma Amor, something that was far more than just another story.
But there were long stretches – for me, anyway – when reading Full Immersion felt like work. That's a problem with me, rather than the book, I think - I've always struggled with narratives about VR - but nonetheless, I struggled.
Which scared me. Not only is Full Immersion a deeply felt, personal novel, it’s published, like The Hollows, by Angry Robot. Most of all, I’m writing these posts because I wanted to celebrate the books and authors on the shortlist, not put them down. The last thing I wanted to do was to write a post that basically said I didn’t like it.
Thankfully, that’s not what I’m doing.
I probably wouldn’t have finished the book if I hadn’t committed to writing these posts, but I can tell you this – I’m bloody glad I did.
It takes a lot for a book to make me cry, but this one managed it. Amor’s invested such emotional depth and commitment in it, exploring the impact of depression, trauma and bereavement, that in retrospect it’s no surprise. And the writing sings.
I’m glad I kept going with this book. And I can’t wait to see what Gemma Amor does next.
You can read Full Immersion here.
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