Author(s): Sven Holm (translated by Sylvia Clayton)

Novel | Dystopia, Science Fiction and Fantasy | Translated fiction | Denmark

Introduced by Jeff VanderMeer, welcome to a luxury hotel at the end of the world in this post-apocalyptic 1967 dystopia ...

The day we came up from the shelters four people were found dead on the steps of the hotel.

Welcome to Termush: a luxury coastal resort like no other. All the wealthy guests are survivors: preppers who reserved rooms long before the Disaster. Inside, they embrace exclusive radiation shelters, ambient music and lavish provisions; outside, radioactive dust falls on the sculpture park, security men step over dead birds, and a reconnaissance party embarks. Despite weathering a nuclear apocalypse, their problems are only just beginning. Soon, the Management begins censoring news; disruptive guests are sedated; initial generosity towards Strangers ceases as fears of contamination and limited resources grow. But as the numbers - and desperation - of external survivors increase, they must decide what it means to forge a new moral code at the end (or beginning?) of the world ...Translated by Sylvia Clayton

'Chilling and prescient.' - Andrew Hunter Murray
'Elemental and true.' - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
'Mesmerizing ... Terrifyingly real.' - Sandra Newman
'Like someone from the future screaming to us.' - Salena Godden

Author Biography: Sven Holm (1940 - 2019) was a celebrated Danish author and playwright. He made his debut as a 21-year old with an acclaimed story collection in 1961. In 1974, he was awarded the Grand Prize of the Danish Academy, where he was made a member in 2001, the same year he won the Danish Critics Prize for Literature. He was awarded the Holberg Medal in 1991.

Jeff VanderMeer grew up in the Fiji Islands and Florida, settling in Tallahassee in 1992, and has been writing since he was 14. His New York Times-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy has been translated into over 35 languages; the first novel, Annihilation, was made into a movie by Paramount in 2018. Described as 'the weird Thoreau' by the New Yorker, VanderMeer has been a three-time World Fantasy Award winner and 15-time nominee over a thirty-five-year career. He also writes non-fiction for many newspapers and edits iconic anthologies with his wife Ann. His most recent novel is Hummingbird Salamander.