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Hunters & Collectors

John Tamberlain is The Tomahawk, the universe’s most feared food critic – though he himself prefers the term ‘forensic gastronomer’. He’s on a quest, in search of the much-storied Hotel Grand Skies, a secretive and exclusive haven where the rich and famous retreat to bask in perfect seclusion. A place where the waiters know their fish knife from their butter knife, their carotid from their subclavian artery, and are trained to enforce the house rules with brutal efficiency.

Blurring the lines between detective story, horror and sci-fi, Hunters & Collectors is a mesmeric trip into the singular imagination of M. Suddain – a freewheeling talent whose poise, invention and sensational sentences have already earned him comparisons to Vonnegut, Pynchon and Douglas Adams.

On the one hand, it’s a galaxy-spanning space opera with intrigue, adventure and fascinating tech extrapolations. On the other, it’s a hilarious, almost Nabokovian account of a food critic’s gastronomic misadventures as he conducts a tour of restaurants on dozens of far-flung planets. Suddain manages the almost impossible task of balancing cosmic scope with slapstick, intricate wordplay and dialogue at times worthy of PG Wodehouse… Hunters & Collectors is a misanthropic joy ride by a ridiculously talented writer and one of the most unusual novels of the year.

Jeff VanderMeer, Guardian

About M. Suddain

M. Suddain was born on a farm in New Zealand. When he was eight, he wrote a novella called Between & Beyond, about an explorer who travels between universes. After becoming a successful journalist and satirist he moved to London in 2008, where he wrote a radically expanded version of Between & Beyond. It was renamed Theatre of the Gods and published by Jonathan Cape in 2013. Hunters & Collectors is his second novel.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781448130917
  • Length: 512 pages
  • Price: £9.99