''Cythera'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

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 Girl(s) may refer to: *Dead Girl (comics), a comic book character *"Dead Girl", a song by Acid Bath from '' Paegan Terrorism Tactics'' *''The Dead Girl'', a 2006 film *The Dead Girl, a 1995 French animated film *'' Deadgirl'', a 2008 horror fil ...

'', 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 a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

whilst living in

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

which suggested that

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

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 The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

Children's Crusade The Children's Crusade was a failed Popular crusades, popular crusade by European Christians to establish a second Latin Church, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land in the early 13th century. Some sources have narrowed the date to 1212. ...

against the West, with children being subject to increasing levels of censorship. Filmmaker Flynn has been imprisoned for making the subversive Dahlia Chan films along with his

leading lady A leading actor, leading actress, or leading man or lady or simply lead (), plays a main role in a film, television show or play. The word ''lead'' may also refer to the largest role in the piece, and ''leading actor'' may refer to a person w ...

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 The Ghost Story Society was a not-for-profit literary society whose members shared an interest in supernatural fiction. Founded in Britain in 1988 by Rosemary Pardoe, Jeffrey Dempsey, David Cowperthwaite and Mark Valentine, it had an international ...

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 network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

and individuals can be downloaded into this where they become effectively

ghosts In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from a ...

. Dhalia Chan the

B movie A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...

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