![]() ![]() The name of the machine? A grendel, of course. But all epic heroes must be called back to action, and for Yorick-who had half his face blown off and survives via constant intake of stimulants-it’s the plea from his former employer to fight off an alien machine terrorizing Ymir’s mines. Our hero is Yorick Metu, better known as “the butcher” for the gory massacre that marked his self-imposed exile from Ymir twenty years ago. This science fiction retelling of Beowulf transplants the epic poem to the eponymous planet of Ymir. Armfield’s lyrical prose aside, I’m just excited to see a queer couple at the heart of a story with The Astronaut’s Wife vibes, yet which sounds like it will get much more under your skin. It’s these kinds of parallels between space and sea that give you a sense of how thoughtfully Armfield has approached this modern horror love story, as Leah’s eventual return to the surface brings a host of bizarre side effects including oyster-silver skin and the need to spend long hours in the bath playing otherworldly music. The title of Julia Armfield’s debut novel (after her acclaimed short fiction collection Salt Slow ) refers to the online role-playing group to which Miri belongs while her wife Leah is gone for six months-except that these women pretend their husbands are astronauts lost in space, and Leah is stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a malfunctioning submarine. ![]()
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