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  • Published: 7 November 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241396575
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 96

Ness




Hauntingly beautiful Anthropocene fable from the bestselling author of Underland and The Lost Words

What happens when the land comes to life?

Somewhere on a salt-and-shingle island, inside a concrete-and-iron structure called The Green Chapel, a figure called The Armourer is leading a black mass. He plans to detonate a thermonuclear missile. But something is coming to stop him.

Five more-than-human figures - or forms, or forces - are traversing the landscape, moving steadily towards a point where they will converge and become Ness. Ness is the land awakened. Ness is lichen skin and willow-bones, condensing mist and tidal drift. Ness has hagstones for eyes and Ness speaks only in birds. And Ness has come to take this island back.

  • Published: 7 November 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241396575
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 96

Praise for Ness

Ness goes beyond what we expect books to do. Beyond poetry, beyond the word, beyond the bomb - it is an aftertime song. It is dark, ever so dark, nimble and lethal. It is a triumphant libretto of mythic modernism for our poisoned age. Ness is something else, and feels like it always has been.

Max Porter