Available Formats
Theodore Savage
By (Author) Cicely Hamilton
Introduction by Gary Panter
Red Lemonade
Red Lemonade
22nd October 2013
United States
General
Fiction
FIC
Paperback
192
Width 127mm, Height 190mm
184g
When war breaks out in Europe -- modern, aerial war whose tactics include displacing entire populations -- British civilization collapses overnight. The ironically named Theodore Savage, an educated and idle civil servant, must learn to survive by his wits in a new Britain... one where science and technology swiftly come to be regarded with superst
Like Colson Whitehead's Zone One without the zombie camp and idiom, Theodore Savage is a dark, strange, and cruelly contemporary tale of The Ruin and the post-apocalyptic condition that follows. The book makes a spirited argument against science and machines, disputing itself viciously to the last word. -- Alexis Madrigal, The Atlantic "Miss Hamilton always writes forcibly, and her present novel deals with the heart shaking effects of the next war. It might, indeed, be used as a tract to convey an awful warning." -- The Spectator (1922) "A particularly effective and chilling version of a theme that dominates British speculative fiction between the wars." -- Anatomy of Wonder, Neil Barron, ed. "Hamilton is one of the first -- and among the darkest -- of those UK novelists whose vision of things was shaped by WWI, which they saw as foretelling the end of civilization." The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Clute and Nicholls, eds.
Cicely Hamilton (1872--1952) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, dramatist, and campaigner for women's rights who served during WWI with an ambulance unit and at a military hospital in France. Her plays include Diana of Dobson's (1908) and How the Vote was Won (1909); her 1909 treatise Marriage as a Trade is a witty criticism of that institution. The dystopian Theodore Savage is her only science fiction novel. Gary Panter won three Emmy awards for his set designs for Pee-Wee's Playhouse. His artistic activity includes the science fiction comics Jimbo and Dal Tokyo, painting, prose, music, and light shows. He teaches at School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.