Gary J. Shipley

For the first fifty pages or so I was wondering whether this was simply a send-up of J G Ballard’s writing (the dense and introspective prose style of The Terminal Beach, The Disaster Area or High-Rise for instance) and maybe it is.
    As in Ballard’s novels, too, there’s a catastrophe in progress here, but not a drought or flood, not the world crystallising. This is biological, genetic: human beings have begun fissioning the way bacteria do, dividing in two, then into four, then eight… Even buildings are being submerged and the Earth is well on its way to being coated with people. From his eyrie, temporarily safe at the top of a residential skyscraper in Mumbai, Kaal watches all this and waits for the rising tide of human bodies, both living and dead, to reach his terrace on the 117th floor.
    Hmm. The author didn’t do nearly enough with such a promising idea though (unless you’re obsessed with Hitchcock’s Psycho and are a fan of self-indulgent art-theory). I’m beginning to suspect I might have a stronger stomach too (or thicker skin) than many other reviewers here, because I didn’t find this in any way horrifying (not even the flies), just increasingly tedious.… (mere)