Printer's Devil

Two warring printers' guilds struggle to survive in a world where natural disaster has become commonplace. Caught up in a risky raid on rival printer Sevenheads' bank, the Printer's Devil and the Patchwork Girl struggle to escape the city as the black wind starts to blow. Picking up where "Clockwork Orange" and "On The Beach" left off, "Printer's Devil" deals with the fate of the remnants of humanity in an extreme post-apocalyptic landscape. A fable in the spirit of Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians", "Printer's Devil" is a meditation on power and its abuses - one that echoes with disturbing parallels to the present.

About the Author :
Of Scottish-Cherokee ancestry, Stona Fitch lives in Concord, Massachusetts with his family. His novels have been published in the U.K., France, Germany, and the U.S. His last novel, 'Senseless' (Two Ravens Press, 2008) is now an independent feature film from Scottish director Simon Hynd and Matador Pictures.

Review :
'A wonderfully dark, dystopian tale set in a world where excessive consumerism has led to an environmental apocalypse.' Doug Johnstone, Independent on Sunday 'Cormac McCarthy set a new benchmark in dystopian fiction with his remarkable The Road, but this powerful and profound novel makes a good stab at matching it... Fitch's future world is wonderfully and completely imagined, from the landscape to the mindset to the language, in a narrative which address big issues like consumerism and abuse of power, but does so with incredible subtlety and always with a very human dilemma at its core. Compulsively readable but also incredibly thought-provoking, thrilling but also highly perceptive, this is everything a modern novel should be.' The List. 'Fitch has created a bleak and disturbing tale. Part paranoid Philip K Dick, part Clockwork Orange. Right from the opening torture scene you are knocked sideways and never really given the chance to recover. Ian's work becomes more dangerous and the people he is working with more unhinged. Any sensible chap would jack it all in but Ian is in love with Melina, a beautiful woman with the mind of a child, and he is saving enough money to flee the city with her, but as the authorities, the rival guild and the black wind draw ever closer he may have to make a run for it sooner than he thought. The key to any book like this is to create a fictional world complete with its own rules, regulations, traditions and slang without asking the reader to do too much work. Over-fill the story with an invented language, syntax or philosophy and only the hardcore enthusiast will follow you all the way. Fitch balances things nicely and certainly marks himself out as a writer to watch.' Scott Pack, The Friday Project. 'Ironic dualities enrich a well-told story. Fitch's home territory is the evolving conscience; his mission is to explore how the internal compass reacts to extraordinary external pressures. Because he's sophisticated enough to avoid preaching a particular code, Fitch spurs readers to examine their own motivations and self-discipline. Printer's Devil simultaneously presents a realistically dire future and suggests that doom can be averted if our societies make the right decisions.' ForeWord Magazine