I really enjoyed reading this book because it was different from other post-apocalyptic tales.
I'm not going to go into the story in depth, as the book slip description is enough without giving away the story.
Basically, it is a place where large corporations have control of the polluted barely habitable world and the people within it. However, it is much more than that and Fogg and his acquaintances must work their way through the cryptic and fantastical landscapes to find their way out of the clutches of those who would determine a poorer fate for them. For some the risk is much greater than others, but they accept this for the greater good!
This book was so detailed and totally entrancing I kept on reading into the night. I don't think I've read anything like it before. I think it even tips the Rotherweird series. I'm really looking forward to the next book in the

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Fogg has been the apparent sole curator of the Museum Dome of artworks and painting for the last three years, meets Morag, another resident of the dome who has been watching him all this time.
With the arrival of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Fogg and Morag escape the dome and find themselves caught between the two factions of Lord Sine and Lord Vane. We then jump back and forth discovering how both our central characters came to be in the Dome and how the desire of both Lord Sine and Lord Vane to rule this world drives them both forward.
Andrew Caldecott's book is a trove of ideas in a steampunk world with hints of Alice in Wonderland and occasionally His Dark Materials. I started Momenticon with the idea that I was going to love it. I was so convinced I bought the book before even starting the arc. Unfortunately, not all of it stitches together and there are too many attempts to create an adventure by jumping the characters around from location to location. It was only towards the end of the book that I started to care about either Fogg or Morag and by then it was the end.

If you like utterly bonkers books that you don't totally understand 100% of the time, this one's for you.

The description calls it Alice in Wonderland meets Station Eleven and that's really not too far off.

The world is in a post-apocalyptic haze, with a toxic atmosphere and humanity split into two opposing groups on the brink of breaking a truce...

Fogg is the youngish curator of a museum dome set apart from the rest of these two groups - he's been looking after the museum and its exhibits all alone for three years. Then Tweedledee and Tweedledum turn up - with murder on the mind, just as a strange girl climbs down from the ceiling.

So yep, utterly bonkers. Fogg and the girl (Morag) soon tell each other how they got to the museum and why - and what they think they need to do now - but for the reader the way forward is not always clear. You really have to trust the author.

Luckily, there are great characters and some fascinating ideas, so I just kept turning the pages and hoping I could follow the story. There were times I wondered if the world we have today really could get to this point, with the two very similar groups of survivors but overall I enjoyed the exploration of what man might do and might value in a world on the edge of ending.

The book does end on a cliffhanger - and I for one will be coming back to it, but I think it's worth bearing that in mind before you jump in.

So I really enjoyed the Rotherweird series and was looking forward to this, however, a word of warning, Momenticon is not like those books. This was quite fantastical and, because of that, I struggled. There's a lot of world building, the characters were difficult to differentiate between (possibly because of a similarity in names?), the wording felt a little too grandiose...I could go on. For me, this novel didn't provide me with any sort of impact in the way the Rotherweird series did. Read if you like your fantasy futuristic and with a heavy does of magical surrealism.

I'd never would have thought that I would ever rate a dystopian book to almost 5 stars, but author Andrew Caldecott proved me wrong.

Having read and loved his Rotherweird, I was both curious and apprehensive of this new novel of his, but I lapped it up in record time.

It is a pst-apocalyptic world, Caldecott is serving up on his literary plate. Due to humankind's worst efforts, Earth's atmosphere turned poisonous destroying almost all lives, except a select few (and the word "select" certainly has literary meaning here) who are under the dominion of two powerful potentates. One of them is Lord Sine, leading the company Genrich, a believer in the exclusive use of science and technology including genetic manipulation to perfect mankind. The other is Lord Vane II, a fan of arts and artistic impressions who has employees controlling the weather (his company is called Tempestas) and just as many hidden agendas as Lord Sine. For their open and secret projects as well as for their own survival, they need a metal called tantalum as humankind seems to be running out on it.

In this impossible setting we meet Fogg (and I am guessing it is an intentional reference to the protagonist of Around the World in 80 Days: Around the World in 80 Days, Phileas Fogg, though I may be wrong), curator of a museum with the finest artefacts of the world, who has never had a single visitor in the days since he moved there. But suddenly it all changes, when he meets a mysterious girl, named Morag, who has the ability to create Momenticons: tablets that can transport you into paintings during the moments of their creation.

Fogg and Morag have to flee for their lives, aided or hunted by the strangest or weirdest characters (among them Tweedledum and Tweedledee). Their quest is down-the-rabbit-hole harebrained and, like the reader, they have no idea where they'll end up next and at first they have no idea what they are searching for.

The world and the plot are weirdly fascinating and fascinatingly weird. Despite the heavy references to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass the novel is not a rehashed Alice-dystopia at all. It's closer to the truth to say that the reading of both books evoked similar bewilderment and allure while trying to find sense in a crazy and unpredictable world and enjoying the ride.

Momenticon is a perplexing and brilliant story full of literary and artistic rabbit holes and quirky characters.
It ends on a cliffhanger and I want to continue this journey for sure.

My thanks to Quercus Books Jo Fletcher Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Momenticon’ by Andrew Caldecott in exchange for an honest review. I was also invited to take part in their social media blast. I complemented my reading with its unabridged audiobook edition for an immersive experience.

While this is the first novel I have read by Andrew Caldecott , he is an author who I have heard good things about. From the outset the cover of this novel with its hints of Alice in Wonderland drew my attention.

‘Momenticon’ is the first in a genre-spanning duology set in an unspecified future in which the Earth has been rendered inhabitable through pollution and climate change. It might sound rather grim but trust me it’s a lot more fun and weirder than the usual post-catastrophic dystopian fiction.

We are first introduced to Fogg, who for the last three years has served as curator of the Museum Dome where mankind’s finest artworks and artefacts have been assembled by persons unknown. In that time there has been no visitors and he has started to think that he may be the last human alive.

Then doing his rounds he see something unexpected: “dead centre on the Biedermeier table below Monet’s lilies (a 1919 version, painting no. 184) lay a largish white pill stamped with a pink sickle moon and an amber star.” He picks it up and wonders who had put it there and what did it do? Oh Fogg are you going to take it? I certainly had a flash of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and Morpheus in The Matrix.

It’s not long after this discovery that Morag, the creator of the pill, reveals herself to Fogg by dramatically descending on a steel cable from a panel in the dome’s ceiling. Cue the start of their delightfully bonkers adventures.

In Caldecott’s dystopia humanity’s few survivors live in domes protected from the toxic atmosphere. Two companies, Tempestas and Genrich, control these domes and their populations. They both have very different plans for mankind's future and an uneasy collaboration between them is about to end. Fogg and Morag find themselves right in the middle of the machinations of these rival forces.

‘Momenticon’ is a strange dreamlike tale that was just wonderful. The title refers to Morag’s pill that allows the person who takes it to briefly be transported to the moment of creation of a specific painting.

When Fogg swallows the pill he found in front of Monet’s waterlilies he finds himself “facing a white-painted footbridge which curved over an expanse of real, unpolluted water.” He then realises that he is standing “beside the artist, unnoticed, and by some miracle shared the old man’s thoughts.”

The book contains a scattering of line illustrations by Nicola Howell Hawley. Caldecott includes a list of these as part of the Table of Contents as well as an opening Author’s Note listing the names of the paintings and artefacts that feature in the novel, some of which are referenced in Hawley’s illustrations.

There was so much for me to love in this novel that blended surreal fantasy, dystopian post climate apocalypse science fiction, art history, touches of steampunk and more. The world building was outstanding with memorable characters. I found it a completely engaging experience. My only wish would be for a list of dramatis personae.

The hardback edition is gorgeous with that striking cover by Leo Nickolls and decorative endpapers depicting a map designed by Nicola Howell Hawley.

The tale will conclude at a future date in ‘Simul’ and meanwhile I plan on reading Andrew Caldecott’s highly acclaimed Rotherweird trilogy.

Very highly recommended.

If, like me, you are a fan of Caldecott's Rotherweird series and eager to get another the fix of that slightly out-of-kilter world, then your wait is over - while Momenticon is set in a different (and in many ways darker) world, there is more than enough kinship between this book and the eccentric characters, contrivances and convolutions of the earlier series to satisfy. Momenticon is, thoug,h rather more direct about what's going, making it generally tauter with a greater sense of peril from the start.

We are in a post-apocalyptic world, some years after the "Fall" (but not so many that it has passed out of memory). Fogg, to whom we're introduced first, is the curator of a museum which contains many of Earth's greatest artworks. Shielded by a chitin dome to keep out the caustic gases that have destroyed most life, the museum is isolated, and has no visitors. (There's a digital counter, just to make sure). Three years into this role, Fogg has settled into a routine, taking his meals as paste from the "rearranged", doing exercise under the stern eye of his AI personal trainer, and inspecting the exhibits. Nobody comes, and nobody leaves, and Fogg doesn't enlighten us about his history.

Until Morag appears.

Fogg's and Morag's meeting provides an excuse for them both to tell their stories (or bits of them), explaining more about the world they're in which is dominated by two organisations, Tempestas and Genrich, broadly working in the arts and the sciences respectively; about its dependance on dwindling stocks of chitin and tantalum; about the array of strange characters they've met and who have directed them where they are now. It's a complex, desperate story full of loss and abandonment, co-option into others' plans, ambition, and revenge. The upshot is that the scattered communities which have survived the Fall are in danger, but also that a faction or factions are placing Fogg and Moral in danger. They must leave the Museum Dome and find a way to live outside.

That's the cue for a series of breakneck adventures, including journeys by airborne ships (not airships, proper ships but flying), encounters with the enigmatic Lord Vane, head of Tempestas, and his disturbing son, Cosmo; flights from danger into danger and a deeper and better understanding of art. I really mean that - just one of the threads here is the "momenticons", little pills which allow the taker to be present at the creation of a work of art, briefly ("moment icon", yes?) Building further on this idea, there are villages and town set up to recreate paintings from Fogg's museum and roving characters taken from books (especially, the Alice books). Fogg's perfect memory for every last detail of those artworks will prove important - as well as a ragged and committed band of holdouts who are opposed to Vane's, and Lord Sine's (of Genrich) plans... whatever these are.

What else? lost parents. Families where all is not what it seems. Arcane machinery. Postcards. And, at every turn, those spillovers from Alice - not only characters, but themes such as the Looking Glass chess-world that Alice moves through and, most of all perhaps, an air of puzzle-ality, if I may invent a word, to everything - a layering of mysteries and challenges where, just as one is about to solve a riddle, another pushes it aside, leaving a nested series of conundrums which it is vitally important to understand. (Not so easy when you're being pursued by mechanical huntsmen, minions with crossbows, or actual slithy toves).

Quite simply, Momenticon packs an enormous lot in, keeping its protagonists (and the reader) on their toes througout, if rather dizzy, and taking both into a deeply strange but also deeply compelling world.

I'd strongly recommend.

Momenticon is a wonderfully weird and yet engagingly easy to read novel.

It immerses the reader into its strange futuristic world, and I"m only disappointed that it's the first of two parts, and I don't yet know how it all ends.

Readers will thoroughly enjoy the world-building and characters. They too, will be left wanting more as the characters weave their way through an alien world populated with images that readers will find reassuringly familiar.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my review copy.

This book is an all round wonderful and completely bonkers fairy tale. I want to see a animated movie from Pixar based off of it. I mean some of the vibes reminded me of UP sooo its meant to be.

At the start you think its a dystopian sci-fi sort of thing, but then the whole thing unravels even further and you fall down the rabbit hole. Following lovely heartfelt characters (Fogg deserves the world) you tumble through a tumultuous future earth. Where most of humanity has been wiped out and those that remain only survive through the use of Chitinous shields that protect them from the toxic dust that blankets earth. This is really a book thats told through stories, fairy tales, paintings and sculptures. I would definitely recommend looking up the pieces that are mentioned.

Overall I did feel like the book went on too long. There were too many twists and turns that it got to a point where I didn’t really have any sense of wonder at finding a new sanctuary or some other weird situation. A few sort of magical realism devices just seemed to be used too many times. I really enjoyed the first half of this book but after that I just went on too long and started to drag.

Fogg is a museum curator, watching over mankind’s greatest artefacts. He also has a photographic memory and can draw any painting he’s ever seen before. What he doesn’t have is any visitors in the museum – until he reaches his third anniversary there, and finds a strange pill in front of one of the paintings. For reasons even he doesn’t really understand, he takes this ‘momenticon’ – and enters into the painting at its moment of creation. Never before has he experienced fresh air and nature and all the aliveness.

For, in this far-flung future where the atmosphere has become a poisonous murk, humanity lives in shield-protected domes. These are owned by one of two giant corporations Genrich, run by Lord Sine, and Tempestas, by the Vanes. One sees the future populated by the genetically-manipulated people they create to work and serve, but the skills of the other are needed to stop an ‘all work and no play’ malady from driving them to madness.

Before he knows it, Fogg is drawn into a frantic struggle for life – his, and the world’s. Which corporation, and which dark dream for the future, will prevail is now in the hands of some very, very strange characters indeed.

There’s no better way to describe this book than ‘weird’. It’s dark and oh so offbeat – fantasy, or a fantastical kind of sci-fi, post-apocalyptic and quite frankly just out there somewhat. It’s also rather erudite (see what I did there?!) with the author never shying away from big fancy words – really, what else could you expect from a (famous from more than a few celebrity cases) QC?! Thankfully the dictionary feature on my kindle did well, and it is nice to learn while you read 😉

The plot is probably also trying a little too hard to be clever. We end up following two main characters, Fogg and Morag, each with different very special skills, as their stories meet and part and circle towards a reunion. I must confess I found it a bit confusing at times, especially with flashbacks of them telling their pasts, then their quests visiting the same places as different times, and rather a large cast of other characters. It really didn’t help that I tended to read when tired, but neither was I so grabbed by the story that I felt compelled to read more at other times.

I think my main complaint would be that neither lead seems to know much, until oh look they had this secret little bit of knowledge – or special skill – they’d never mentioned before, but is now vital. Other characters drift in and out to provide needed information at just the right time, and everyone seems obsessed with keeping secrets. It sort of fits with the dreamlike atmosphere, but it also felt a bit contrived: here’s a new character who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. Again.

And yes, that fever-dream quality. With all this amazing but fantasy-ish technology, the obsession with art and recreating scenes (full tableaus, including people/not exactly people) and even characters from Alice in Wonderland (a theme that never quite hit for me) seems so weird and trivial and pointless it all just kind of lost me.

There is, no doubt, huge amounts of imagination here, and it’s well-written and at least an interesting read, if a little heavy-handed with the environmental message. But it also felt just a bit of a jumble and overly-ambitious, vaguely inconsistent with the imagery (or rather, any sense of why), and really just not entirely satisfying on any of the plot threads. Kicker, of course, being the “The story will conclude in ‘Simul'” at the end. I probably will read the sequel when it comes out, but with mild annoyance that I should have to.

My reaction to any Andrew Caldecott’s book is “I don’t know what’s happening but I know I’m loving it”.
I don’t know if I would be able to summarise the plot of Momenticon and there’s a lot going on and everything makes sense in a sort of non linear logic.
This book was marketed as the love child of Alice Through the Looking-Glass and Station Eleven. I didn’t read Station Eleven and there’s plenty of references to Carroll but there’s plenty of references to famous paints, The Hunt in the Forest by Paolo Uccello amongst the others. This make me think that Caldecott is a sort of Hieronymus Bosh and something in the plot made me think about The Garden of Earthly Delights.
That said this is an entertaining book, a book full of food for thought as it deals with a dystopic future where people lives under domes and people is being engineered for satisfying production needs.
There outliers are amongst the few persons who live in a sort of independent way
This the start of a gripping and enthralling trip into a phantasmagorical world. There’s a sort of quests, there’re some villains, and there’s some lovely characters life Fogg or Morag.
I loved this book and can’t wait to read Simul, the follow up.
I think it’s a sort of marmite book and may not everybody will love it. But if you try and follow the white rabbit you will have a lot of fun.
Many thanks to Jo Fletcher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Momenticon by Andrew Caldecott

4 STARS

I'm not sure there are enough words that can accurately describe this weird, brilliant, funny and adventurous read.

There's a dystopian setting (called The Fall) - a not-unrealstic picture of what could befall mankind should we not take climate change seriously. There's our two protagonists - Fogg (whom, I'm ashamed to admit, I failed to recognise might well have drawn inspiration from Phyllias Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days...) and Morag who have both separate and parallel stories. We've got a delightful and quirky supporting cast in Mander (the butler),Potts (the librarian) and Crike (the 'mad' old spinster, who's anything but). We've got the antagonists, the sinister Lord Sine and Lord Vane, both of whom own competing and differing organisations and are both pursuing the survival of the human race. It's art versus. science on an apocalyptic level.

It's 4 STARS for me as there were moments where I found the story itself hard to follow. However, the pacing more than makes up for this as we're straight into the action until the inevitable cliffhanger.

If you liked Rotherwierd, you'll like this!

A post-apocalyptic/climate breakdown dystopian landscape with sci-fi levels of tech, but with fantastical nonsense literature sensibilities.

If you've read Andrew Caldecott's previous series Rotherweird, then you'll have some idea what to expect from Momenticon.
I feel like this takes the best parts of that series, the weirdness and brilliantly chaotic energy whilst also slimming down the amount of characters (and aliases) that you are required to remember.

We follow two main protagonists, Fogg (who can accurately copy any art) and Morag (who can create momenticons) as they escape the confines of their visitor-less museum dome (the domes provide protection from the toxic, corrosive atmosphere) following an attack by the genetically engineered Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

If that sounds complicated, well, it is. But I promise it does all gradually make sense as more of the world is revealed and we learn about the two companies that offer the only protection from the elements.
I loved the concept of paintings coming to life - both through the population being forced to act as living versions of paintings and through Morag's ability.

At heart it is an adventure mystery. With Fogg and Morag zipping between locations, trying to workout what danger they're in and what happened to Morag's explorer father.

A rip-roaring adventure through a brilliantly weird and wonderful dystopian landscape. I can't imagine what'll happen in the next book but I can't wait to find out!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

What on earth did I just read?

Momenticon is like being stuck down the rabbit hole, dragged along for the ride. I love fantasy and science fiction, but this was just too much for me. Don’t get me wrong it had a clever mix of art, literature, and computer programming which was frankly brilliant. It sets a fast pace with scenes jumping from one to another quickly and makes you constantly question if what was happening was real or just in their head.
It follows Fogg and Morag, both gifted artists set in a post-apocalyptic world, as they navigate the changing realities around them. The writing style is completely unique to Andrew Caldicott, his earlier Rotherweird series is a favourite of mine, but unfortunately, this was too much for me, halfway through I had to stop, and I had no idea what was going on and I was starting to get a headache. I don’t normally give up on books, but this one beat me.

This one was a little too far into the realm of science fiction for me. I haven’t read Andrew Caldecott before, but from reviews I’ve perused, this novel is fairly reminiscent of his style and genre bending talents. It is undeniably clever, the weaving of literature and art with science fiction set within a post apocalyptic universe. My imagination has always struggled with heavy science fiction and the blend with steam punk fantasy positioned this novel too far out of reach for my tastes. If you are partial to science fiction though, or even futuristic steam punk fantasy, you may enjoy this more than I did.

Weird, mad and utterly bloody brilliant. Caldicott’s latest offering to offbeat fantasy is not to be missed. Featuring his trademarked style, absurdist humour and a cast of larger than life characters, this was a joy to read.

I will say at the outset, I don't normally read this genre. But I became hooked on Andrew Caldecotts' Rotherweird trilogy and couldn't wait for this new creation. Momenticon does not disappoint. The principal characters are Fogg, a young man who curates a museum of Art set within a dome following 'The Fall' of earth. He has spent 3 years living on his own, when things changed with surprising speed. We then meet Megan- after that you can find out for yourselves....
Suffice to say I thoroughly enjoyed the journey in to Caldecotts' world. I read this book in 3 days, no mean feat as it is detailed but totally absorbing. I am very grateful to the publishers and Netgalley for the chance to read an advanced copy of Momenticon. It is simply brilliant. Congratulations to the author.

Those readers who have experienced the delights of Andrew Caldecott’s Rotherweird series (Rotherweird, Lost Acre and Wyntertide) may have some inkling of what to expect from the first of his latest duology Momenticon. That earlier series dealt with an English town cut off from the rest of the world, alternate realities, bizarre inventions and a roll call of eccentric characters. But even they may have to recalibrate in the face of the sheer post-apocalyptic weirdness that makes up his latest novel.
Momenticon opens in a museum full of famous art works, a lonely dome in a dying landscape. The Museum has been looked after for the last three years by a young man called Fogg but has received no visitors. As the third year ticks over strange things start to happen including finding a pill that gives him Monet’s perspective of painting his water lillies, discovering that a young woman called Morag Spire has been living above him in the ceiling of the Museum for three years and being visited by two malicious young men dressed as Tweedledum and Tweedledee out of Alice in Wonderland. Morag and Fogg catch each other up on the previous three years before the story catches up to the present and then hurtles forward.
There is so much going on in Momenticon that it is hard to encapsulate. But the overarching narrative is a battle for control between the two powers (Genrich who specialise in cloning and Tempestas who can control the weather) that remain over the damaged world with Fogg, Morag and their allies caught in the middle. The battle takes place in landscapes that have been created to resemble famous art works and involve not only people but robots and genetically altered creatures resembling characters out of Alice in Wonderland. And that is before we get to the momenticons themselves – pills that can transport the taker to another world – which only a few, including Morag and the evil Cosmo Vane, have the power to create.
Readers of Caldecott’s previous work will recognise many familiar elements but deployed in a new guise. The fundamental battle between good and evil, a range of characters with Dickensian names (such as Oblivious Potts, Peregrine Mander and Hilda Crike), a steampunk aesthetic (the main characters get around in windbag operated airships and there are plenty of automata), puzzles and quests, and a very English sensibility. But here, being post-apocalyptic, he also has an environmental point to make.
Momenticon is wild but fun and works within its own crazy frame of reference. The trick is to let accept the fantastical premise, don’t wait around for too much exposition and go with it. While Rotherweird took a while to get going, this book is more stripped back, only providing a little backstory before dropping straight into the action. After which it feels non-stop, splitting the protagonists up and bringing them together again, delivering a series of growing climaxes and then leaving readers hanging for an anticipated concluding second volume.

After his superb Rotherweird trilogy, Andrew Caldecott offers us another offbeat fantasy, a dystopian world in which after The Fall, a climate disaster with the destruction of the natural world, the earth's atmosphere is so toxic that survival depends on people living in domes protected by a chitin shield, serving either Lord Vane's Tempestas or Lord Sine's Genrich. Each man has different perspectives on the way forward in the future, and both have been operating together under an uneasy recent truce. Fogg has been the diligent curator of the finest artworks and paintings in the Museum Dome for the past 3 years. He has been completely alone in all that time, with only the AIPT, an automated physical trainer to keep him fit, and there has not been a single visitor at the museum. Life is about to change drastically for him.

First of all he finds a pill, a momenticon, that takes him into a painting, and then Morag Spire puts in an appearance, it turns out she has been residing in the museum for the last 3 years too without his knowledge. The arrival of Dee and Dum, twins with an addiction to momenticons, lead to Fogg and Morag leaving the museum through necessity, using the twins Aeolus vessel, a craft that Fogg seems to have some experience of. So begins an exciting and dangerous adventure for Fogg and for Morag, desperate to locate her her long lost explorer father, Gilbert Spire. They are aided by a number of colourful and vibrantly drawn cast of characters, such as the edgy Niobe, a black geologist, Benedict, who physically resembles the Vanes, Miss Baldwin, Cassie's nanny, Oblivious Potts, and the remarkable Hilda Crike. The enemies assembled against them are led by the villainous Cosmo Vane, and include Marcus, a weather-watcher, as chitin and tantalus, on which life depends, become ever scarcer.

Caldecott is marvellously imaginative in his intricate dystopian world building, with his rich description of the mines, using famous artists, such as Monet and Bosch, and their well known paintings as the background in which so much of the action takes place. Then there is 147's, aka Hernia, Long Eye and the fabulous golden beetles that make Fogg initially so nervous and apprehensive when he first encounters them. This is a wonderfully entertaining, compelling and immersive fantasy read, with plenty of suspense and tension, in which Caldecott successfully creates an equally engaging and original a world as Rotherweird. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

'Momenticon' was one of the books I was most looking forward to reading this year, and it has not disappointed even those high expectations. Following on from his gloriously bizarre 'Rotherweird' trilogy, Andrew Caldecott's new story is set in the future. Pollution has left most of Earth uninhabitable, the air full of toxic smog. People live in sealed domes, owned by one or other of two powerful rival companies. At the start of the book we meet Fogg, a young man who is the curator of the last collection of humankinds great works of art, in a museum that has had no visitors for three years. His quiet existence is interrupted by the arrival of Morag, who has the ability to create momenticons - pills that induce a very specific hallucination designed by the maker. The pair soon find they are pawns in someone's complicated game - or maybe survival strategy - and embark on an adventure spanning the globe and meeting all sorts of eccentric characters along the way. Some of whom want to kill them, some to help them, and some whose motives remain unclear...

Caldecott's writing style is recognisable from 'Rotherweird', as is the general 'feel' of the novel despite the very different setting and situation. Like 'Rotherweird' the great strength of the book lies in the characters, who are gloriously odd and very likeable (with the exception of the big baddies of course). The camaraderie between them draws the reader in, making you feel like a member of their strange little group. There's the same sense of underlying complexity and mystery, of people manipulating the protagonists behind the scenes. Occasionally it's frustrating, but you just have to sit back and trust Caldecott to deliver - and experience says he will.

Unlike a lot of post-apocalyptic books there's not too much hand wringing - it's a forward looking, energetic novel and full of incident and excitement. I loved the 'Rotherweird' trilogy, but if anything this is even better - the scope is bigger and grander, and it's brimful of imaginative brilliance. Caldecott has a genius for revelling in the joy of the strange - there's an unpredictable edge to his scenarios that keeps the reader and the characters on their toes. It's truly escapist literature, without needing to introduce any elves, dragons or the like. You don't know where the story is going to go, but you know it's going to be a heck of a ride to get wherever it is.

Anyone who enjoys fantasy adventure books will love these - and they're good enough that I'd recommend them to readers who only dip into the genre occasionally. There's a puzzle/mystery element that might also appeal to crime fans, if they don't mind a bit of the surreal. The end leaves things up in the air, ready for a sequel - I'm already desperate to get my hands on it!