Shahriar Shaams has written for SUSPECT, Third Lane Mag (forthcoming), Commonwealth Writers’ Adda, Six Seasons Review, and Jamini. Find him on twitter @shahriarshaams.
These characters, human and machine alike, are invited to provide witness statements about their working environment to a commission, which form the entirety of the novel—a design that helps Ravn bring about an atmosphere of tension.
In The Last White Man, Hamid uses an anodyne, clinical voice to set an atmosphere of unease of a white society panicking within, as a wave of darkness intrudes their skin, turning them impure, perhaps wild.
Lapvona has paupers becoming princes, severe environmental disruptions adding to the owe of the common folk, and the old lady acting as a witch and healer, who serves in the role of a fairy godmother, albeit with a modern touch.