Moths: A chilling dystopian thriller and a must-read debut for 2021

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This story is a page turning read that captures the mind of the reader with the plot twists, and their heart with all the emotional pulls. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Love blooms, in all its forms, despite the world around it, forming the threads that hold us together. I liked the idea of a reluctant, cautious hero rather than a main character who is desperate to charge into battle.

I love all types of speculative and apocalyptic fiction, right from serious introspection of the nature of reproductive rights to graphic novels about zombies. I wanted my protagonist to be an older woman, flawed but capable, and constantly underestimated by those close to her. I also looked at the migratory patterns and distances of butterflies to model the collapse of the world – they can fly an incredible 1,200 to 2,800 miles or more.There’s a bit of a weird fever dream scene where she hallucinates herself as a “feminist” moth who wants to kill men. Women run all the facilities and government, there are also women running all the facilities and centres, women caring for the men in those centres. But beyond the treatment of men in the present day, the stories that Mary and Olivia told were beyond heartbreaking. When writing the future timeline, it turned out that getting rid of the patriarchy is harder than just killing off the majority of men and locking the rest up in facilities and sanatoriums. You’ve talked about being influenced by feminist dystopias, and also an article about a toxic caterpillar?

I absolutely loved this fast-paced read and I am even more impressed now I know it has been self-published. Not strictly a dystopia, but Ursula Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness had a huge impact on my views on gender. I didn't love the protagonist and found her a bit boring (being elderly is no excuse to be boring btw) but the book is still really enthralling and I love the fact women are in control, as opposed to Handmaid's Tale etc. The book is not a thriller really, it’s quite slow in the beginning and any time things seem to be getting a little interesting it is interrupted by a flashback or forward to share the two storylines of Mary and sometimes her coworker Olivia experiencing the original outbreak and their present where they are dangerously close to considering that maybe men deserve an equal place in society. I was expecting it to be more of a thriller based on the description; men turning wild and violent when exposed to the caterpillar toxin.The characters are very well written and I can say that, not only did I thoroughly enjoyed this read, I also repratedly sacrificed sleep to find out what would happen next. It’s decidedly less funny, but beautiful and devastating and was a catalyst for my seventeen-year-old self to start to question the status quo.

As addressed, technology is very limited and cameras (photo or video) do not appear to exist anymore, and they therefore employed Mary’s help in the first place because she has one. Before I start, if you get a chance to listen to the audiobook, do so as Juanita McMahon does an incredible job with the various voices, young and old. It’s certainly a striking, eye-catching cover, which really draws attention to the importance of the dust. I think you’ll either love or hate this one depending on your views on actual feminist issues and equality. As humanty adapts into a matriachal society, the surviving men are kept isolated, and imprisoned for everyone’s protection and the world begins to move on.I wholeheartedly recommend- perfect if you like immersive stories that are fast paced and get you thinking. Clearly, women don’t know anything about banks either, because there is some kind of barter system that uses paper credit slips and travel vouchers? While the pacing at the present time tends to be slower and calmer, the memories of our characters tend to depict more tense moments, and it balances pretty well. I had to create a world where all men suddenly stop being able to go to work, pretty much overnight. There doesn’t appear to be television or computers either, entertainment seems limited to theater of some kind.

I have not addressed the fate of trans men to the same extent, only as far as suggesting they do not suffer from the toxin but may hide their true male identity for fear of reprisals. Publisher, Eleanor Teasdale:“ Moths is utterly, horrifyingly compelling with an older protagonist who has lived through the change in the world.Older people are often underestimated, but these days many people are living action-packed, exciting lives into their eighties and beyond. The follow up to last year’s Ten Low ( read our review here), Hel’s Eight is a new chapter in Stark Holborn’s world of wild west interplanetary gun slinging. We’re primarily introduced to the world of Moths via Mary – why did you choose Mary to be the book’s protagonist and what can you tell us about her? This stereotyping adds a level of absurdity as it highlights just how ridiculous it is to associate women with certain innate traits, but it is also quite jarring when you realise it feels quite unnatural to read men be described as weak and silly but it doesn’t feel strange reading women be described this way.