fantasypages.ca

5. Life After Life (2013)

If you are familiar with the history motif in the Chinese fantasy genre, similarly to the Life After Life, readers will have the opportunity to experience the form of a person with the character – many numbers. parts. Ursula Todd was born on 11/2/1910, but died over and over again, from the umbilical cord, from drowning, from the flu or from falling from a roof. Ursula just died and was reborn in such a new life, 17 times in total.

However, death here is not a tragedy but a way for Ursula to change the world, making endless choices until it is right. Placed to be a witness of wartime London, through the catastrophic Blitz bombardment in history, what strength can a woman like her exert?

Of course, we all cherish life very much because life seems to come only once and only. But this 2013 Costa Book award-winning novel, through Ursula’s unique and persistent existence, reminds us: Try and do your best even in the face of death. And if you are the Ursula in the story, given countless more lives by Kate Atkinson, are you willing to make daring decisions?

6. Tenth of December (2013)

In literary history, perhaps the number of people who made their name thanks to short stories was not so much. In addition to Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, Anton Chekhov, Alice Munro, … George Saunders is also one of the rare people to conquer this genre. His fourth volume of short stories, Tenth of December, has achieved proud achievements such as the British Folio award in 2014 or a nomination for the 2013 National Book of America, which convinced that he was the master of short stories.

The 10 short stories in the book delve deeply into the lost characters in a maze of trouble and compassion. Writing about class, love, sex, work, war, despair, loss with both realistic and surrealistic pen, Saunders has reached the core of contemporary life.

In the short story “Diary of the Girl Semplica” , it is the fate of the girls in the developing world to be brought to America as a “living ornament” for the lawn. Or in the future prison world in “Escape from the Spider Head” , where a prisoner is brought out to test the drug that makes people “drown” in love. These haunting stories have clearly set off alarming bells about what might happen once technology overtakes humanity, and questions us about the importance of ethics and conscience.