''Cythera'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by British writer Richard Calder, first published in 1998. While it is not explicitly advertised as a continuation of Calder's previous novels it does appear to be set in the same universe as his "Dead Girls" trilogy, as it references some of the background of the earlier novels and features two supporting characters - Kito and Mosquito - who were introduced in ''

Dead Girls ''Dead Girls'' is a science fiction novel by British author Richard Calder, first published in the UK in 1992 (HarperCollins) and 1995 in the US (St Martin's Press). It was his début novel. The novel is the first in Calders 'Dead' trilogy, a ...

'', though knowledge of these novels is not required to understand this stand-alone novel. Due to the timeline given the events of ''Cythera'' appear to take place before those of ''

'', making this a prequel of sorts. Richard Calder has said that the inspiration for the novel came from a series of news reports that he heard on the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

whilst living in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

which suggested that

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

was gripped by hysterical fear that bands of children were committing crime and mayhem and threatening to destroy society as we know it.His Own Aesthetic Richard Calder interviewed by Charles Rudkin Interzone #170 August 2001, page 25

Plot summary

''Cythera'' is set in a near future Earth following an unsuccessful Third World Children's Crusade against the West, with children being subject to increasing levels of censorship. Film-maker Flynn has been imprisoned for making the subversive Dahlia Chan films, along with his leading lady Jaruwan. Thanks to the increasing power of the Net sentient 'ghosts' of media images have crossed from Earth 2 to Earth 1, and the novel follows the affair between human Tarquin and Dahlia Chan, their efforts to rescue Jaruwan and their ultimate quest for the freedom of mythical Cythera.

Reception

The reviewer in ''All Hallows'' the magazine of the Ghost Story Society treated the book as a modern

ghost story A ghost story is any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them."Ghost Stories" in Margaret Drabble (ed.), ''Oxford Companion to English Literature'' ...

. Earth 2 is also called fibrespace. It is the future of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and individuals can be downloaded into this where they become effectively

ghosts A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

. Dhalia Chan the

B movie A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...

actress lives on in fibrespace. However the real actress, called Jaruwan still exists in the real world, or Earth 1:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cythera (Novel) 1998 British novels British science fiction novels Orbit Books books