> Skip to content
Play sample
  • Published: 29 April 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241524893
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $18.00

Fremder




Existential science fiction with a family secret at its heart

Fourth Galaxy, 4 November 2052: in the blackness of space a figure in blue overalls tumbles over and over as it drifts towards the planet Badr-al-Budur. No space suit, no helmet, no oxygen. He can't be alive, can he? But he is.

First Navigator Fremder Gorn is the only survivor when the Corporation tanker Clever Daughter disappears. Nobody knows how he did it, and everybody, including Fremder himself, wants to know. Dr Caroline Lovecraft, Head of the Physio/Psycho unit, finds that intimacy doesn't lead to answers and Fremder's own memories are resolutely obscure. Fremder's name means stranger, and his story is otherworldly and yet ultimately life-affirming.

  • Published: 29 April 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241524893
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $18.00

About the author

Russell Hoban

Born in Pennsylvania in 1925 to Ukrainian immigrant parents, Russell Hoban's interest in writing started early, with his stories and poetry winning him prizes while still at school. During the war he served in the US Infantry. Following his discharge from the army he held a variety of jobs, including work as a freelance illustrator and a copy-writer. It was during this time that he started writing, taking it up as a full-time occupation in 1967. His first full-length novel, The Mouse and His Child was published in 1968, and is widely regarded as a children's classic. In addition to his acclaimed children's books, Hoban writes for adults. He has lived in London since 1969.

Also by Russell Hoban

See all

Praise for Fremder

Recalls Orwell's 1984 and Wells's The Time Machine.... a revelation.

The Guardian

Unputdownable, moving, ingenious... it will remain in my head with troubling images and scenes for a long time.

A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard

Shot through with Hoban's trademark luminous prose... A book to read and reread.

Financial Times

He displays prodigious storytelling skills and an uncanny talent for fleshing out allegories. The result is an urgent, bitterly ironic but tender evocation of the capacities of the human spirit.

Independent on Sunday

A funky and funny tour de force.

Mail on Sunday