"where she painted masks for wounded soldiers to wear over horrifically damaged faces. Their village is on the Sussex Downs, overlooked by an ancient face carved into the chalk, reputed to protect inhabitants from a hungry spirit. But since the death of the last member of the family traditionally bound to look after it, the face is fast disappearing beneath the grass, and something frightening is stirring in the land."
"In 2030, three astronauts arrive on Mars, on a one-way mission to prepare for full-scale colonisation. They find their robot-built base, the Citadel, severely damaged, and one of the robots missing. The remaining two offer different explanations: the missing robot malfunctioned and caused the damage before fleeing, or the Citadel was attacked by an unseen, hostile alien force, and the third robot went in pursuit and has not returned."
Set in England after the First World War, the first narrative follows surplus women Florence, her fey niece Phoebe, and Kit, a bohemian artist haunted by wartime memories of painting masks for horribly wounded soldiers. Their Sussex Downs village is overseen by an ancient chalk face reputed to protect inhabitants, but the guardian carving is disappearing and a hungry spirit stirs in the land. In 2030, three astronauts reach Mars to prepare for colonisation and discover the Citadel robot-built base severely damaged and one robot missing, with the remaining robots offering conflicting, alarming explanations. A separate fantasy reworks an online fan-fiction origin into a new world driven by occult sciences and a brutal war between devout believers and necromancers.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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