peter young’s listopia

8) Michel Faber, The Fire Gospel, 2008
The tenth in Canongate's series on myths, this one being modelled loosely on the story of Prometheus stealing fire from Zeus and giving it to mortals, but there any proper connection to mythology ends and the satire begins. A cynical Canadian researcher in a ransacked museum in war-torn Iraq stumbles upon a hidden manuscript written by a man who knew Jesus, and a sudden lust for fame and money drives him to publish it as The Fifth Gospel, go on an American book tour and risk the wrath of Christians, Arabs, homocidal maniacs and Amazon reviewers alike. Wickedly funny for the most part, with Faber sharing exactly the kind of vicious, ascerbic humour of fellow Dutch author Cees Nooteboom. Faber must have had a very good time writing this – and I must get round to reading his science fictional Under the Skin, which has been sitting on my shelves for far too long.

44) Jeanette Winterson, Weight, 2005
A mischievous (and brief) retelling of the myths of Atlas and Heracles infused with some imaginative cosmology. It somehow resolves into a curiously direct form of science fiction, one that cuts through the tropes and gets down to a core theme: the boundaries we have and our necessary liberation from them. One of those off-centre book many SF fans would like, this is the first Jeanette Winterson I've read and it won't be the last.