Ace, terrific, any superlatived you like, this ideas-driven author writes like the dream his two protagonists believe they are part of. It’s science fiction, yes, it’s fast-moving and explores ideas of time and fate, but it’s perceptive and gripping so thriller readers may enjoy it too.
STAMPING BUTTERFLIES tells the story of two dreamers. One, a would be assassin in tomorrow's Marrakech. He aims to kill the US President and holds in his head the secret to a faster-than-light drive. The other, a Chinese Emperor, ruler of 148 billion people on an immense Dyson sphere thousands of years in the future. Each believes they are dreaming the other. One must change the future, one must change the past. Both have only days to live.
This is a fast moving unusually well written SF novel of ideas. Ideas that will change the reader's perception of time and fate. Ideas from the cutting edge of hard science. It is peopled with vivid characters and evocative of Marrakech, where the author has lived.
'This is a virtuoso lesson in bringing artistic unity to radically dissonant elements. It is also the novel of a writer with real heart. STAMPING BUTTERFLIES is a book written with superb technique by a writer who never forgets that technique alone is not the whole point.' Roz Kaveney TIME OUT
"Turning the idea of the past determining the future upside down, this thriller takes an attempted assassination of the US President in the Seventies and an emperor awaiting his death in ancient China and creates a riveting read."
ESQUIRE
"Grimwood imbues his creations with startling psychological complexity. Marrakech is brought to vivid life, along with its inhabitants. Grimwood has produced, imago-like, an inspiring butterfly of humanity and hope from a hard shell of despair." Eric Brown THE GUARDIAN
Author
About Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Jon Courtenay Grimwood has worked as a freelance writer for magazines and newspapers including the Guardian. He has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award twice and the BSFA Award for Best Novel seven times, winning twice. He lives in Winchester with his wife: novelist and editor of Red magazine, Sam Baker.
