Termush

(Faber Editions)

By: Sven Holm, Jeff VanderMeer - introduction

Championed by Jeff VanderMeer - 'a classic: stunning, dangerous, darkly beautiful' - 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, 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.

But 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 infection 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...

©1967, 2023 Sven Holm, Jeff VanderMeer (P)2023 Faber Audio

Critic reviews

'Chilling and prescient.' Andrew Hunter Murray

'Elemental and true.' Kiran Millwood Hargrave

'Mesmerizing.' Sandra Newman