? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Adam Biles’s dystopian novel, Beasts of England , is a sequel to George Orwell’s 1945 classic. In this ambitious satirical novel, the author packs seemingly endless features of our modern world and the ailments that plague it into Manor Farm. Now a petting zoo in South England, the farm swarms with pigs and foxes as they vye for power while other beasts and birds are entangled in a myriad of political intrigues, rumors, corruption, greed, xenophobia, and diseases that claim the lives of many, and the wellbeing of most. Through sinister events where the farm gradually descends into mayhem, we are able to recognize events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, partygate, and other major disruptive events and scandals that have wreaked havoc in the past few years. The writing, however, remains almost bubbly, which contrasts sharply with what unfolds. This stylistic choice successfully permeates the novel with both a heaviness and a sense of restlessness that befit any observer of the majority of today’s global socio-political and economic landscapes.

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