Home
/
Non-Fiction
/
Appliance
Appliance
Apr 19, 2025 5:20 AM

Author:J. O. Morgan

Appliance

**Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2022 **

From the Costa Award winner, a highly inventive and and humane novel about our relationship with technology and our addiction to innovation.

This is the tale of a new technology, an alternative history that unfolds over many decades. It is a fable told through a constantly shifting cast of characters, all drawn into the world of a machine that slowly alters every life it touches.

But in this unending quest for progress, what will happen to the things that make us human: the memories, the fears, the love, the mortality? As we push towards a brave new world, what do we stand to lose?

'Such a super novel' Wendy Erskine

'A clever book...that will have you thinking about the machines in your own life' Sunday Times

Reviews

Appliance is a work of peculiar genius that gives the truth about modern technology.

—— The Times, *Sci-Fi Book of the Year*

A serious-minded examination of the instinctive human ambivalence towards innovation.

—— Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2022*

Smart, subtle and blissfully jargon-free sci-fi stories from one of Britain's most acclaimed poets.

—— Daily Telegraph, *Summer Reads of 2022*

[With] poetic precision... Appliance most succeeds is in its little riot of the real in the face of digital abstraction.

—— Times Literary Supplement

A clever book, delivered confidently, that will have you thinking about the machines in your own life.

—— Sunday Times

Superbly unsettling... Reading Appliance, I was put in mind of Asimov's I, Robot, for the way each story sheds light on a different moral angle of the book's world, and of ours... gripping.

—— Tristram Fane Saunders , Daily Telegraph

These deceptively simple tales... reveal how magical technology does people absolutely no good whatsoever... superb.

—— The Times, Science Fiction Book of the Month

Such a super book.

—— Wendy Erskine, author of Sweet Home and Dance Move

Compelling... sketched with acid precision... Morgan's real skill is in finding the poetry of the conundrum

—— Stuart Kelly , Scotsman

J.O. Morgan's novels are unmissable for their finely-worked prose and conceptual brilliance and Appliance is no exception.

—— White Review, *Books of the Year*

Compelling... It is the Bildungsroman of something inhuman, and it is terrifying.

—— Scotsman, *Summer Reads of 2022*

Morgan's real skill is finding the poetry... in this fable-like, compelling novel.

—— Scotsman, *Books of the Year*

Rogers... is a superb listener... [and This Is What It Sounds Like] can show you how to be a better listener - and, perhaps more importantly, how listening, too, is an art and a fundamental part of the creative process

—— Times Literary Supplement

Magnificent - an unbelievably immersive and mind-blowing account of how other animals experience our world

—— Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees and The Inner Life of Animals

Like stepping into a new kind of Alice in Wonderland. The perfect mixture of revelation, curiosity, science, beautiful prose and buckets full of wonders

—— Andrea Wulf, author of The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World

A cornucopia of wonders... a fascinating reminder of the humbling truth that most of what happens among life forms on Earth is beyond our ken

—— David Quammen, author of Spillover

An expansive, constantly revelatory exploration of the biosphere's sensorium... Ed Yong is my favourite contemporary science writer

—— William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and The Peripheral

Every page finds the reader mouthing quiet whoa's, as the world she thought she knew opens out into a hundred others, improbable, strange, and fabulous.

—— Mary Roach, author of Fuzz and Stiff

An Immense World took my hand and brought me on a journey I'll never forget. After reading this book, I'll never look at our planet the same way again

—— Clint Smith, author of How the Word is Passed

A whirlwind tour of animal perceptual abilities. A magnificent book

—— Frans de Waal, author of Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist

A tour of places that are, in essence, unknowable... Yet Yong...proves an outstanding guide... Beautifully written and painstakingly researched... this fantastic book leaves you wondering what else is left to be discovered

—— The Times, *Book of the Week*

Ed Yong's fascinating new book on the complex behaviours of creatures uncovers a universe of unfathomable beauty... Not since Oliver Morton's masterpiece of popular science Eating the Sun (2007) has a book so persuasively made the case that the Earth is greater than we know

—— New Statesman

A wonderful, wonder-full book

—— Literary Review

Both eye-opening and humbling

—— Radio Times

Remarkable... a delight, a book that prompts awe at the world around us

—— Sunday Times, *Summer Reads of 2022*

A tour of our own world as we may never experience it

—— Geography, *Book of the Month*

This book will reignite your sense of wonder and appreciation for our amazing planet

—— Woman's Own Magazine

Immaculately researched, elegantly written, iconoclastic and compulsively readable

—— The Times Literary Supplement

[Yong's] skills are on full display here, as he clearly and succinctly sketches out complex scientific and philosophical ideas in terms that are understandable for the lay reader

—— Prospect

Yong ... has a rare ability to break down overwhelming amounts of information into compelling, digestible detail. His An Immense World will make you question everything you thought you knew about how non-human animals perceive our shared world.

—— Heromag

One of President Barack Obama's 'favourite books of 2022'

—— President Barack Obama

Remarkable ... manages to be both a celebration of our species' genius for observation while also revealing how narrow and partial our 'sense' of things. Yong reveals how life is much greater than we can images.

—— New Statesman, *Books of the Year 2022*

Yong's colourful, character-filled writing reveals a multidimensional world that has hitherto remained hidden to us

—— Guardian, *Books of the Year*

This book welcomes us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals

—— The Week Bookshop, *The best of 2022*

Ed Yong's book is a celebration of sights and sounds, smells and tastes, and the ways different animals exist on the planet we all share. Yong blends scientific study and elegant prose to transform textbook fodder into an excting read

—— Time Magazine

A brilliant story about life's most challenging puzzles: friendship, family, love, loss. By turns funny, poignant, wistful, and occasionally devastating

—— NATHAN HILL, author of THE NIX

The sort of book that comes around once in a decade - a magnificent feat of storytelling. It is a book about the intersection between love and friendship, work and vocation, and the impossible and relentless pull of our own west-bound destinies

—— REBECCA SERLE, author of In Five Years

Sam and Sadie's relationship is pure wizardry; it's deep and complex, transcending anything we might call a love story. Whether you care about video games or not is beside the point. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is the novel you've been waiting to read

—— Book Page, Chika Gujarathi

I feel completely changed by this book from Gabrielle Zevin. It's a book about love - about friendship, but really it transcends the borders of storytelling. My heart ached when I finished it. Truly unforgettable

—— CATHERINE CHO, author of Inferno

The perfect engrossing holiday read...beautiful and heartbreaking

—— The Times, *Summer Reads of 2023*

Zevin's delight in her characters, their qualities, and their projects sprinkles a layer of fairy dust over the whole enterprise. Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.

—— Kirkus

A one-of-a-kind achievement

—— Publishers Weekly

A particularly memorable and compelling kind of love story... [a] nuanced depiction of human connection over 30 years that will have you blinking back tears behind your sunglasses

—— Culture Whisper, *Summer Reads of 2022*

dazzling and intricately imagined

—— B&N Reads

Zevin's writing is like being put under a spell. She's kind of magical.

—— Liberty Hardy , WBEZ

Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.

—— Kirkus

exhilarating

—— Smithsonian

engrossing

—— Wall Street Journal

delightful and absorbing . . . expansive and entertaining

—— Tom Bissell , New York Times

The go-to for your next hit of Nineties nostalgia; if you ever spent too long playing Donkey Kong, this one's for you

—— Evening Standard, *Summer Reads of 2022*

This is a boy meets girl story that is never a romance - though it is romantic . . . Their relationship is a joining of minds and of worlds that is both purer and sweeter than any base physical attraction

—— Pippa Bailey , Observer

Big-hearted, generous, intelligent and open to the complexities of life

—— Irish Independent

A novel that treasures the act of play and holds it sacred . . . the world of video games and video game development is just the landscape in which life plays out . . . Tomorrow is about love, above all things

—— Sarah Maria Griffin , Guardian

Delightful and absorbing

—— Tom Bissell , International New York Times

Teenagers of the 21st century are as likely to bond over video games as they are rock music or movies. Gabrielle Zevin's exhilarating, timely and emotive book is perhaps the first novel to truly get to grips with what this means

—— Guardian

Exhilarating... this is refreshingly original

—— Psychologies

It is the imaginary world of a game, a world Zevin describes with the addict's ardour, which forms a universe even the sturdiest parent or antediluvian book-lover will be enticed into.

—— Big Issue

Friendship, love, loyalty, violence in America and the magic of invented worlds. Gorgeous

—— People

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a special book -- one that transports readers fully, as games do their players, into its immaculately crafted world

—— The Times

Woven throughout are meditations on originality, appropriation, the similarities between video games and other forms of art, the liberating possibilities of inhabiting a virtual world, and the ways in which platonic love can be deeper and more rewarding - especially in the context of a creative partnership - than romance.

—— New Yorker

Zevin probes at many of the themes that energize video games as a medium: their narrative depth, their therapeutic value, their casual violence, their toxic industry. And the possibility of living a better life in a virtual world

—— Wired

Zevin has the ability to make you care about her creations within paragraphs of meeting them... whose fates I consistently worried about when I occasionally had to put the book aside.

—— Financial Times

[An] engrossing, delightful novel... Zevin has the ability to make you care about her creations within paragraphs of meeting them... [Tomorrow] is rich with characters whose intertwined fates power the narrative

—— Financial Times

This book, with its respect for craft-the craft of love and games, or loving games-will remind you of how abundant one life is, how lucky we are to keep each other in our memories forever.

—— Kotaku

[I] raced through this pure wonder of a book in a few days

—— NINA MINGYA POWLES, author of Small Bodies of Water

A 2022 book that everyone should read

—— Pandora Sykes , Stylist LIVE

A must-read

—— Neil Druckmann

Anyone who reads Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow can't stop talking about it

—— Stylist

Utterly beautiful and endlessly hopeful, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a love letter to life, friendship, and creativity

—— The Skinny, *Books of 2022*

[The] 2022 book that everyone should read

—— Pandora Sykes , Stylist Live

My #1 book to recommend . . . incredible, like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon meets The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. It's about love and friendship and video games

—— Emma Straub

It feels right that the best video game novel out there is by a woman. Her story about the decades-long friendship and partnership between video game designers Sam and Sadie gets at so much about work, love and storytelling. It's a book that spawns great conversations.

—— Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch

In following Sam and Sadie's journey from Massachusetts to California and into the imagined worlds of their games, Zevin writes the most precious kind of love story

—— Time Magazine, Best Novel of the Year

Zevin's writing is poetic, the plot is entertaining, moving and gripping and the nods to real life video games make it all feel incredibly real

—— Skinny, *Books of the Year*

Reading this is almost like an invitation from Zevin to enter a game...with every scene and moment so carefully constructed. Just brilliant

—— Skinny, *Books of the Year*

I loved it

—— Sarah Keyworth

A hugely enjoyable novel about lives and loves mediated by technology

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023*

This playful, accomplished novel is a poignant celebration of friendship, love - and gaming

—— Daily Mail

An engrossing coming-of-age story

—— Sunday Times, *Books of the Year*

Epic in scale, with unforgettable characters, it breaks you heart and puts it back together

—— Daily Express, *Books of the Year*
Comments
Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdbook.com All Rights Reserved