The Sun Casts No Shadow by Mark Richardson

 

Rating: ★★★★

Genre: Dystopian

Format: eBook

Pages: 180

Synopsis: 

Wellington Thorneycroft is content picking pockets, taking Ambrosia, screwing prostitutes, and simply surviving in the hellish, walled City. But everything changes when he spots a spectral woman who wordlessly conveys the message: We’ll escape together. Suddenly, Thorneycroft’s life is turned upside down as he’s pulled along a circuitous path to an unknowable freedom: a path marked by violence, sex, and metaphysical dread.

Review:

"I became enamored with books and reading. It was a means of escape from my dismal existence."

Wellington Thornycroft is quite a character. He picks pockets, uses ambrosia, indulges in sexual encounters with prostitutes, and generally despises his life.

He lives in a walled city where the sun never shines. It's gloomy, dark and filled with smog from a factory. The heat is overbearing, suffocating and claustrophobic. It is all he has ever known. A mundane, repetitive life.

Until by chance of fate, he has a vision of a dark haired beauty who tells him there is an escape. A beautiful place outside the city walls where the sun shines brightly.

It becomes his obsession to find her and find out who she is. It leads him on a path of secrets, violence, betrayal, and a small glimmer of hope that there may actually be an escape from within the walls.

This is a dystopian world with an inclusion of fantasy. It includes injustice, daily suffering, loss of individualism, and environmental destruction. Creative characters that fit into a fantastical realm.

As I was reading, the children's book that continued to enter my mind was 'The City of Ember', but obviously this has intense adult content. So, not specifically a comparison, but the fact it's an escape from a city that they are all contained in and a dystopian world.

I often felt that this is such a bizarre story with quirky characters, but in a good way. It peaked my interest and I found myself engaged and enjoying it. I wasn't expecting the ending. It caused my jaw to drop and created this sense of utter hopelessness for Wellington.

A creative, somber, uncanny world!

Goodreads Author Link:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/

Amazon Author Link:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mark-Richardson/author/

Author Website:

https://www.authormarkrichardson.com/

About the author

Mark Richardson is the author of the novels Malibu Burns, The Sun Casts No Shadow, and Hunt for the Troll.

His short stories have appeared in numerous crime and literary publications, including Hobart, Fugue, Segue, Crime Factory, Switchback, and Nth Position.

Born in the Chicago area, he graduated from the University of Iowa, and promptly escaped the midwestern winters for sunny California, first living in Los Angeles and then San Francisco. He spent thirty years working as a writer and marketer for tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Mark now lives in the East Bay with his wife, two children, and the world’s cutest dog. He spends his time writing fiction, obsessing about the Chicago Cubs, attending his daughter’s softball games, and reading stacks of books. He loves genre-bending fiction, especially speculative writing with a noir flavor. In 2019, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and supports the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Review Links:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/