Termush

Introduced by Jeff VanderMeer – ‘a classic: stunning, dangerous, darkly beautiful’ – welcome to the post-apocalyptic White Lotus: a luxury hotel at the end of the world in this lost 1967 dystopia for fans of Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men.

‘Chilling and prescient.’ Andrew Hunter Murray ‘Elemental and true.’ Kiran Millwood Hargrave ‘Mesmerizing.’ Sandra Newman ‘Like someone from the future screaming to us.’ Salena Godden

The day we came up from the shelters four people were found dead on the steps of the hotel.

Welcome to Termush: a luxury coastal resort like no other. All the wealthy guests are survivors: preppers who reserved rooms long before the Disaster. Inside, they embrace exclusive radiation shelters, ambient music and lavish provisions; outside, radioactive dust falls on the sculpture park, security men step over dead birds, and a reconnaissance party embarks.

Despite weathering a nuclear apocalypse, their problems are only just beginning. Soon, the Management begins censoring news; disruptive guests are sedated; initial generosity towards Strangers ceases as fears of contamination and limited resources grow. But as the numbers – and desperation – of external survivors increase, admist this moral fallout, they must decide what it means to forge a new ethical code at the end (or beginning?) of the world …

Translated by Sylvia Clayton