![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s dangerous work, especially when Ropo investigates the case of a missing child on behalf of a spectral mother. Living in a near-future where things have clearly gone awry, she’s streetwise beyond her years and makes a living delivering messages to and from ghosts: “a Royal Mail, telegrams-type death mail service”, as Huchu puts it. WHEN GHOSTS TALK SHE WILL LISTEN Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker and they sure do love to talk. The latter gave him teenage protagonist Ropo, school drop-out and resident of a shantytown located on the edge of Scotland’s capital. Huchus The Library of the Dead, a sharp contemporary fantasy following a precocious and cynical teen as she explores the shadowy magical underside of modern Edinburgh. “As a writer, you want to sound a little bit tortured and all that shit,” Huchu tells SFX, “but I had a great time writing it, it was a total blast.” So how did Huchu come to write such a fantastic urban fantasy? As the man himself tells it, he “pretty much ripped off my own work” by drawing on two of his short stories: a tale similarly called “The Library Of The Dead” (2017), set in his adopted home of Edinburgh, and “Ghostalker” (2015), set in his Zimbabwean hometown of Bindura. Despite its ominous title, The Library Of The Dead by Tendai Huchu (TL for short) is one such novel. Rarer are those novels that pull you along with a sense that the book’s creator is having huge fun and, moreover, has the technical chops to match the sheer energy of the storytelling. ![]() THE WORLD IS SURPRISINGLY FULL OF novels where you find yourself quietly admiring the writer’s mastery of craft. ![]()
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