Martin Martin’s On The Other Side by Mark Wernham – Review

Martin Martin’s on the Other Side by Mark Wernham

There’s something distinctly cinematic about Mark Wernham’s debut novel – perhaps that’s because it follows in the tradition of dark and satirical dystopia, a genre with notable successes in both book and film (with frequent crossovers): from the mind control of Nineteen Eighty-Four to the bleak streetscapes and casual brutality of A Clockwork Orange; from the grimy towers and ducts of Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil to the seemingly idyllic but actually grim social stratification of Huxley’s Brave New World; there are echoes of them all in Martin Martin’s On the Other Side (with more than a little bit of Woody Allen’s Sleeper thrown in for good measure), and it’s a book that’s easy to picture on the big screen. That’s not to say that this is an unoriginal book, far from it – Mark Wernham knows his onions when it comes to skewering the ridiculousness of the present through the invention of a possible future, and it makes for an enjoyable read.

via Simon A’s Review: Martin Martin’s On The Other Side, by Mark Wernham | Bookgeeks.