A Superior Spectre

by Angela Meyer

"A brilliant, deeply unsettling work." Books + Publishing.

Jeff is dying. Haunted by memories and grappling with shame, he runs away to a remote part of Scotland with a piece of beta tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past. Instructed to only use it three times, Jeff – self- indulgent, isolated and deteriorating – ignores this advice.

In the late 1860s, Leonora lives in the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by nature. Contemplating the social conventions that bind her, her contented life and a secret romantic friendship with the local laird are interrupted when her father sends her to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh. But Leonora’s ability to embrace her new life is shadowed by a dark presence that begins to lurk behind her eyes, and strange visions.

A Superior Spectreis a novel about curiosity, entitlement and manipulation. It reminds us that the scariest ghosts aren’t the ones that go bump in the night, but those that are born and create a place for themselves in the human soul.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Novels

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 23, 2018

About the author

Angela Meyer’s debut novel A Superior Spectre (Ventura Press, ANZ & Saraband, UK) was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award, the MUD Literary Prize, an Australian Book Industry Award, and the Readings Prize for New Australian Writing. She is also the author of a novella, Joan Smokes, which won the inaugural Mslexia Novella Award (UK), and a book of flash fiction, Captives. Her work has been widely published in magazines, journals and newspapers. She has worked in bookstores, as a book reviewer, in a whisky bar, and as commissioning editor and then publisher at Echo Publishing, where she was responsible for award-winning, internationally published and bestselling works. She now works as a freelance structural and story editor and consultant. She grew up in Northern NSW and lives in Melbourne.

Reviews

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★
“But I cannot speak to Leonora or control my effect on her. She sees Melbourne, she sees this place, she sees my past, she sees my eyes in the mirror. I am an infection.”
[Jeff, in the future]

. . .

“It is easier to imagine that you are possessed than to face the possibility your mind may be fooling you.”
[Leonora, in the past.]

Uniquely unsettling. Imaginatively disturbing. The promotional blurbs tell much of the premise of the story, so I’m not going to repeat it all here, other than to say it’s about Jeff, a middle-aged (?) Australian from the future (a bit beyond ours) and a very young woman, Leonora, living in rural Scotland in Victorian times.

People have chips implanted, so it’s impossible to hide, but hiding is what Jeff is desperate to do. He is suffering the end stages of overdosing on an experimental drug that allows him to inhabit the mind of someone in the past, which he’s been doing regularly. He runs to hide in Scotland, where he has been experiencing Leonora’s past life.

The story opens with the graphic, bloody description of Leonora skinning a rabbit. She is a child of the countryside and knows how to find and prepare food for herself and her widowed father.

Her obsession with animals extends to wanting to know what makes them (and us) work. She likes feeling around inside animals and is often called upon by neighbours to lend her small, nimble hands during a difficult lambing or calving.
[I can testify to the satisfaction of helping to deliver a newborn creature, but I digress.]

Jeff, on the other hand, is a bit of a degenerate who seems to have devoted himself to the old mantra of “if it feels good, do it”. He speaks of music from the mid 20th century, but I’m not sure if we know exactly when his part takes place. I have to say, I like how he describes they cope with the weather then.

“When I left Melbourne, it was one of those sickeningly hot days, where metal turns to liquid, and a breeze feels like a blast from a hair dryer. One of those days where people without regulation systems built into their underclothes drop dead in the street.”

A regulation system in your undies – what a great invention that would be! There are several futuristic devices, which are interesting, but the main story hinges on the gradual unhinging of Leonora, as Jeff keeps visiting her mind to experience the sensation of being a young woman in the 19th century.

They are both very physical, sexual beings, and the sexual scenes are fairly explicit, but essential to show they are each beginning to inhabit the other’s psyche. Jeff enjoys a very fluid sexuality, having liked boys since his youth, but then never outgrowing the attraction, which is not as socially acceptable as his attraction to sensual women.

“There still seems to be a deep misunderstanding, in my experience, about how complex sexuality can be, and about our capacity to desire so much, so many different types of people, at once.” [Jeff]

Leonora has always had a strong interest in the natural world and science, and she begins to question what’s happening to her. When she looks in the mirror, it’s not always her eyes she sees looking back. Is she imagining it?

“It makes me think about how powerful our thoughts can be. We might think we are sick when we truly have no ailment. But if we present the symptoms, and believe them, are we not sick anyway? Is a false illness still genuine in some way?. . . I wonder if a person could learn to be aware of when the mind is influencing a bodily reaction, and also when an instinct is overruling the mind.”

An unschooled girl with a good mind. No wonder Jeff liked her.

It’s an odd book, that’s for sure. It crosses so many genres, that alone makes it interesting.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted, so quotes may have changed.

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Superior Spectre is the first novel by Australian publisher and author, Angela Meyer. In the Highlands of Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century, young Leonora Duncan is content with her life in her father’s small village, Chapeltown. She loves animals, learning about them from Mr Anderson, while their laird, William Wink is kind, a man disinclined to clear his tenants for more profitable crops. Her only worry is that her loving father does not seem content with this future, deciding to send her to Edinburgh in the hope of attracting a better husband.

Perhaps two hundred years later, Jeff has received an unfavourable diagnosis, one that will mean surgery and drugs. He opts out, planning to suffer his body’s natural deterioration, seeing this as what he deserves. It requires anonymity, so he fakes his ID and takes a cottage on a remote Scottish island.

Aware he will be quite debilitated, he brings an andserv to assist him. He allows himself the distraction of a piece of experimental tech-tainment: a tab that links his mind to someone in the past, in his case, Leonora Duncan. His self-indulgent rejection of the admonition to use it only three times has serious consequences for his host. Even as he becomes aware of this, he does not desist.

This is a novel of historical fiction, of time-travel, of possession, of madness and paranoia. The story is told in a dual narrative: Jeff recounts the events that brought him to the island while his reminiscences offer some explanation of his mental state, his guilt and shame; Leonora’s account gives the reader the unique perspective of sensing another’s presence inside the mind.

Meyer’s tale is original and cleverly constructed, touching on several thought-provoking topics: the sense of entitlement of certain generations; the powerful lure of curiosity; the restrictions placed on women in the nineteenth century; the treatment of mental illness. Meyer easily evokes her setting with her descriptive prose, and her characters are so well drawn that the reader is bound to feel anxiety about Leonora’s fate and repulsion at Jeff’s behaviour, as intended. This is an outstanding debut novel and it will be interesting to see what Meyer does next.

[Theresa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The historical richness of Outlander meets the dystopian feminism of Margaret Atwood in this highly accomplished book from the most exciting debut novelist of 2018 – Angela Meyer.”



The first thing I want to say about A Superior Spectre is this: do not go into this novel thinking it is anything at all like Outlander. It’s not. It’s a curious blend of science fiction and historical fiction, the resulting story presenting as a cautionary tale with gothic leanings about the perils of greed and power alongside the misuse of science. It’s startlingly clever yet intensely discomforting and it should possibly come with a content warning as it has the potential to upset some readers.


Jeff is the most vile creature I have ever come across in a novel. His self flagellation did nothing to balance out the perversion of his desires, it just made him even more contemptible. He is given a device which enables him to indulge in a digitised neural experience (DNE), a futuristic invention akin to time travel for your mind. Yet, because he is dying, he doesn’t follow the instructions and overuses it to the point where he has invaded the mind of a young Scottish woman living in the late 1860s, whose connection to him slowly sends her mad. Jeff’s entire life has been about him, every step of the way, so it stands to reason that he will die that way: self absorbed and self indulgent. He disgusted me and once his ‘desires’ became apparent, I will admit to distancing myself from his sections. And yet, Jeff’s sections were quite an accomplishment for the author. When you have a character who is so repulsive, reader instinct is to turn away. I felt like Jeff was trying to make us feel for him, while at the same time, the author was giving us every reason not to. It was an interesting dynamic.


With Leonora, I was fully invested in her journey. These historical sections were so steeped in atmosphere and authenticity. There was a gothic element to the setting and the sense of Victorian restraint was ever present. To me, there was a Dracula kind of feel to this part of the story, with Leonora’s mind being inexplicably invaded while her body became infused with sensation and desire. I liked this blend of the gothic historical with science fiction. It was so unique and provided a solid canvas for the author to explore many themes, most notably, the abuse of power within the context of male privilege and the idea that female promiscuity is linked with mental instability.

“We cannot do this, or it will create some external evidence of my madness. A woman who has burst from her corset, from the cage of her bones. That’s what it feels like, like I am uncontained and spreading out.”



Leonora was oppressed, in so many ways, and Jeff seemed to take it upon himself to ‘enrich’ her by infusing her with his own memories and desires. Yet he oppressed her further and it was incredibly sad to see her unravelling under his influence. And infuriating as well. I was so angry at him, wishing he would just get on with the business of dying and leave her in peace, which was what he was wishing as well! I was also angry at the other men in Leonora’s life. Her father, who simply wanted to get rid of her so he could have a new life with his new wife; Oskar, who wanted to indulge in her sexuality yet despised her for it; William, who betrayed her confidence in him. Leonora suffered in the way so many women have throughout the ages: she was not permitted to live freely, to simply be herself.

“I want to live in the Highlands – to have physical duties but to be free in my thoughts, to use my hands while my mind has time to draw connections between ideas.”



I very much liked the ending of this novel. It rounded things out for all of the characters and provided closure for the reader. I don’t mind an open ended finish but I was pleased the author avoided that in this case. A Superior Spectre is a clever piece of literary fiction. I feel there will be resistance to and adulation heaped upon this novel in equal spades. It will depend on how you approach it, but an open mind will lead to a greater appreciation.


Thanks is extended to Ventura Press and Simon & Schuster via NetGalley for providing me with a copy of A Superior Spectre for review.

[Karen Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a marvellous and original book. In blending history and science fiction, Angela Meyer has created a work of literary prowess that lingers in the imagination long after the last page.
Told from two viewpoints (mainly), this is the story of Australian Jeff who, longing to escape not merely his past, but his secret, hidden self, flees Melbourne for the Scottish Highlands and, eventually, an island. But Jeff carries more baggage than simply what he regards as his shameful desires. He also has a device that allows him to escape his deteriorating corporeal frame and enter the mind and soul of someone from the past. That someone is young Leonora. Warned he can only use it three times, Jeff ignores the advice, and uses the equipment to escape his own life and experience Leonora’s at will.
Motherless Leonora lives in the Scottish Highlands in the 1860s with her father, tending the land and animals of the local laird. Content with her lot, loving the knowledge passed onto her by Mr Anderson who manages the laird’s many animals, Leonora is inquisitive, kind and keen to learn as much as she can. When she not only befriends the young laird but starts to have strange visions and yearnings which she cannot reconcile, she wonders what is happening to her.
When her father sends her to join her aunt in sooty, noisy Edinburgh, Leonora is inconsolable. Torn from her old life, the only constant is the man she senses lurking behind her eyes, on the periphery of her mind and the strange, impossible visions and strong, sensual urges his presence arouses. Uncertain what is happening to her, fearful she is going mad, possessed or both, Leonora’s life begins to unravel. There is only one way she can be saved, but selfish, indulgent Jeff is no hero.
Two lives are at stake, but only one can survive…
Exquisitely written, this book evokes both a distant future where human contact and companionship can be replaced by life-like devices and technology gives us entrée to the past and others that is both dangerous and exhilarating. It also plunges readers into history and Scotland post-enlightenment. This was a time when women and science were pushing boundaries and the mind was a new territory, ripe for exploration and exploitation.
Unique, rich and incredibly sensual and sexual, this novel takes us to the edges of desire and beyond, exploring issues such as loss, regret, choices, shame, sexual fantasy and reality, and the depths and heights to which human nature can both plume and strive. It also examines boundaries – those imposed by our sex and sexual desires, social constraints and culture and how, even we’re free, we create our own cages and then rail against them.
What also makes this novel so very different is the way it not only segues between male and female point of view but how, at times, these either blur or become so distinct as to appear as if they’re alternate species.
Clever, convincing and unputdownable, Meyer’s debut novel is sensational. My sincere thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy. What a ride. What a read.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I am conjuring the past, while she is beginning to see the future.’

At some time in the future, Jeff is dying. Burdened with the baggage of his memories, Jeff flees Australia for Scotland. He has a piece of experimental technology, a device that will enable him to enter someone else’s mind through digitised neural experience (DNE). It’s a technology that has not yet been successfully trialled, and Jeff has been advised to only use it three times. It’s advice that Jeff plans to ignore.

Leonora is a young woman living in the Scottish Highlands in the late 1860s. She is busy and happy at home when her life changes forever. Leonora’s father sends her to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh. But her new life becomes unbearable as Jeff connects to her mind and gives her glimpses of a future that she cannot begin to understand.

There’s more to the story than this. Imagine a world where it’s possible for one individual to invade the mind of another. A world in which the invading individual has no scruples, no care for the person whose mind is being invaded. Imagine how terrifying it would be to see glimpses of a future you don’t understand and to experience longings which are abhorrent to you. Imagine two people trying to control one mind. If you don’t want to imagine this, or at least entertain the possibility that it is imaginable, them you may not wish to read this novel.

I kept reading, sickened by Jeff and his actions, by his disregard for others. I kept reading, saddened by what was happening to Leonora and by the perceptions of those around her. I kept reading, wondering about possibility and about ethics.

I finished the novel, disturbed in part by what I’d read but in awe of the way in which Ms Meyer developed the story. I wondered how many people like Jeff there might be:

‘Or perhaps I will just destroy this. Take no responsibility. Life is chaos; people are all the time causing minute fluctuations which will change history’s path.’

How does it end? You’ll need to read it for yourself.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster (Australia) for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Nicky_K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up A Superior Spectre for a few reasons. One was because it was recommended to me that if I loved Outlander (which I really, REALLY do) then I would like this book. The second was the science fiction element of being able to time travel mentally using a device. I love a good time travel novel and I had high hopes for this book.

To say this novel was a giant let down is an understatement. While the writing is very clever and it was refreshing to read something that wasn’t in the typical once upon a time set up, the book, in my opinion, did not live up to its hype. The only thing it had in common with Outlander was that it was set in Scotland. That’s it. Yes, there was a time travel element but the writer only took us as far back as the 1860s and it was not in some magical Devine way. It was an invasion of privacy and it never sat well with me.

Character-wise I couldn’t stand Jeff, our male protagonist. He was long winded, unnecessarily despondent and selfish in regards to how he treated those around him. I just couldn’t connect with him and his dark thoughts. It was like reading about the human version of Eyore - if Eyore was in his forties and liked to constantly think about having sex with teenage boys -- Yeah, that was another thing that didn’t sit well with me either.

The upside is that alongside Jeff’s melancholic accounts, the novel switches over to the other protagonist, Leonora who is living in the late 1800s era in Scotland. Her sections of the book were a joy to read and so captivating. I personally would have preferred the novel to center on Leonora and her perspective. For that reason, I gave the book a 3 out of 5, because I could have left the rest and just focused on her interesting journey of navigating society and mental health in 1860s Edinburgh.

[Kiran Bhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Superior Spectre cannot be described as merely a political statement or a brilliant premise remarkably actualized. It does not, like so much standard science fiction, simply describe the lunacies of its world. In merging the vantage points of sci-fi and historical fiction, the male mentality with the female, the crags of Scotland with the plains of Australia, Meyer has created a novel of convergence and repercussion, fusion, and dissociation, that never gives the reader – not even once – the option of averting her eyes.

- Read more of my thoughts on A Superior Spectre over at Litro Magazine: https://www.litromagazine.com/reviews...

[Tracey Allen at Carpe Librum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Science fiction meets historical fiction in A Superior Spectre by debut Australian author Angela Meyer. In the near future Jeff is dying from an un-named medical condition and seeks solace to suffer and die alone in his shame. But he's not completely alone, as he takes a companion android and a piece of technology that allows him to see through the eyes of a person in history. Jeff is an unlikeable protagonist, and I didn't warm to him or his plight at all but I think that's the point.

Jeff forms a connection with Leonora, a young woman living in the Scottish Highlands who is slowly becoming a woman and is sent to live with her Aunt in Edinburgh. We experience Leonora's life through Jeff's experiences and I found her chapters the most compelling.

I have to disagree with the promotion for this novel as blending “the historical richness of Outlander with the powerful dystopian feminism of Margaret Atwood”.

I don't see anything of Outlander in this novel. There is no romance between the characters, and if anything, Leonora believes she is cursed or possessed when she becomes aware of Jeff's presence. The only tenuous link between the two is time travel, but our protagonist doesn't actually time travel, he just witnesses chunks of time in Leonora's life. Outlander travels back in time to Scotland in the 1740s, and Leonora is living in the Scottish Highlands in the late 1860s, so this comparison is misleading.

I also didn't find this novel to be dystopian or feminist so have no idea why it's being compared to the writing of Margaret Atwood. My guess is that this novel is hard to categorise or pigeonhole and that's a good thing. It should be able to stand on its own and comparing it to popular works in this way actually does the reader a disservice.

Being a fan of historical fiction, I wasn't surprised to find myself wrapped up in Leonora's story and wishing she had a book of her own. I was fascinated by the group of like-minded people Leonora stumbles across and definitely wanted more of this. I could easily have done without Jeff and his selfish behaviour, although the android assistant/companion aspect was interesting.

A Superior Spectre is recommended for readers interested in a science fiction meets historical fiction mash-up.

* Copy courtesy of Ventura Press *

[John Purcell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished A Superior Spectre a couple of days ago and needed time digest it before writing a review. Angela Meyer is a writer who is willing to take risks and has written an unconventional novel. Something this reader applauds her for. I could describe A Superior Spectre as speculative fiction, or a timeslip novel, or a dystopian novel, or a feminist novel but none of these would do. It is all and none of these. Meyer shrugs off neat categorisations. It is not her way. A novel seems a way for Meyer to pose questions which have no easy answers. The reader is as much a part of the experiment as the writer. As we are when we read John Fowles’ The Magus. And like The Magus, A Superior Spectre will make every reader uncomfortable at some point. The questions cut deep. Set in the very near future and in nineteenth century Scotland, her two main characters are unusual and respond to their strange cross-epoch union in ways peculiar to themselves. And it is this unpredictability which kept this reader riveted. In turn horrible, sweet, erotic, tense, challenging, beautiful, disgusting, solemn, abhorrent and moving, A Superior Spectre is a novel no serious reader will forget in a hurry.

[Calzean · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strangely enticing story with two narrators. The first is male, he is dying and flees Australia to hide from his wife, friends and past. He wants to carry his sins to his grave. It is also sometime in the near future and he has some mechanism which allows him to enter into the mind of someone in the past. In his case this is the second narrator, Leonora a young woman in the mid 1800s Scotland. She starts to see some of the future and of the life of the dying man. Leonora stars in this book.
What grabbed me was both the originality of the story telling and the haunting emotional writing covering a historical period where women were starting to seek freedom from social restrictions, have the right to sexual fulfilment and have the ability to make their own choices.
Thoroughly enjoyable.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how I feel about this book - confronted? intrigued? depressed? uplifted? It's very well written and it is certainly staying with me, to the point where it's almost weighing on my mind. I have so many questions. How much of what she thinks and feels is because of him? How much of what he thinks and feels is because of her - how much of the effect goes both ways or is it just because she has naturally influenced him. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending either - on one hand I felt so sorry for both characters for so much of the book, but on the other hand is it all a bit too neat and pretty? I really don't know what to think. I think I need reading group therapy.

[Julia Tulloh Harper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed many things about this book - including the central premise (man from future inhabits mind of young woman from the past using illegal tech- complications and unsettling things ensue) as well the exploration of the importance sensory experience in forming our sense of self. Also respect the way Meyer created such an awful character in the male protagonist! Overall I think though this was a novel about ideas (subjectivity, desire, shame, power) rather than story- I mean, stories are always about ideas, but in this case I think the story suffered a little for remaining in service to the ideas, and I didn’t always find the ideas that coherent. But I think many people will enjoy this book, especially it’s dark and upsetting tone.

[Cass Moriarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had heard good things about Angela Meyer’s debut novel, A Superior Spectre (Ventura Press 2018 Peter Bishop) but wasn’t quite sure what to expect – the blurb sounded like some strange genre-bending blend of historical fiction and science fiction. Two points: firstly, that is exactly what I got. And secondly, it hooked me and engaged me much, much more than I would have imagined possible. And I suppose that is because, like all good writing, this novel traverses the human condition, in this case exploring themes such as identity, belonging, death and dying, sexual desire, madness, feminism and friendship, all wrapped up in a shape-shifting, interconnected tale of the past and the future. And if that sounds far-fetched and audacious, well, it is. It is also highly imaginative and adventurous. The book takes risks, and the writing is thoughtful and thought-provoking.
In summary, the story is this: Jeff (from the unspecified future) is dying, and contemplating his life – his shameful desires, his failed marriage, his regrets. In a remote Scottish village, he escapes his ruminations through a piece of experimental technology that allows him to literally enter the mind and experience the life of someone in the past.
The simultaneous narrative is of Leonora, a poor Scottish woman living in the 1860’s, who is quite happily living her rural life surrounded by the animals she loves, until she begins to have strange visions, hear words she doesn’t understand, and imagine contraptions that have not yet been invented. As this possession seems to take more and more control of her mind, with physical repercussions, her own actual life is challenged and often limited by the social conventions of the day, her father’s new wife, and the fact that he sends her away to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh, supposedly to learn some airs and graces and perhaps catch a good match of a husband. With the death of her mother in Edinburgh (when Leonora was only five) haunting her, and with the fluctuating, unknowable presence that begins to invade her dreams and then her waking hours, she is driven to pursue answers for what might be disturbing her.
I note that answers are not always, or not easily, found; the book leaves much unsaid, and much to the reader’s imagination and interpretation.
This novel could easily have become a he-said / she-said narrative, bumping along awkwardly between two such different times. But Meyer seamlessly blends the two so that although at the beginning, we are clear about which character is which, by the end they have almost become the one person. Obviously, this raises all sorts of questions about identity, imagination, and artificial intelligence and technological ethics, but it is also a deep inquisition about how we as humans can ever fully know another person, their deepest dreams and desires, and explores the polarities and the politics of gender, age, social standing and intelligence.
If you loved Jane Rawson’s The Wreck, or Krissy Kneen’s An Uncertain Grace, both award-winning novels that combine a passion for science and the future with a curiosity about the past, then this book will appeal. And as with those books, the real connection for the reader in this story is the commonality of human feeling and an exploration of human flaws, needs, yearnings and ambitions.

[K.J. Sweeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

When books are sold as being like a well known or well-loved book that you've already read, I'm always a little sceptical. A Superior Spectre was described on the NetGalley email, encouraging me to request it, as being similar to A Handmaid's Tale. I have to say, that although this is set in a dystopian future, it isn't really like it in any way. If it were like any of Atwood's frightening glimpses of a possible future, then it reminded me of the world the Oryx and Crake trilogy or The Heart Goes Last. Really, comparisons are pointless, this is a great read in its own right.

The book is really two stories, that are linked by technology that allows the futuristic Jeff to see into the mind of Leonora, a young Scottish girl from the 1800's. Jeff is dying and uses these journeys into Leonora's mind as a form of escape. The more he joins with her though, the more that his thoughts begin to break into her conscious and life. While Jeff battles his own demons and illness, Leonora struggles to find her place in life and questions her sanity. More than once I couldn't help but wonder if Jeff was a figment of Leonora's imagination, or that perhaps Leonora was a figment of Jeffs.

This is an interesting and engaging read. I wanted to follow the paths of both of the main characters and find out what would happen to them. It is in some ways a book with a science fiction setting, but to describe it as such really sells it short. The tech that allows this all to happen, isn't really the point, but it is about the two main characters and how they deal with their lives and situations.

A Superior Spectre is a fantastic read and I found it gripping from the beginning. I found myself involved in the storyline and just couldn't put it down.

[Kalliste · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure how I felt about this book. On the one hand I enjoyed Leonora's side of the story but I found Jeff unlikable. I assume we were meant to feel this way but I'm not sure.

I mostly just found myself wanting to go back to Leonora's time and had little interest in what happened to Jeff.

*** I received this book for free by Netgalley ***

[The Cats’ Mother · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was invited to request this book by NetGalley, and despite knowing from the outset that it was more "literary" than my usual, was intrigued by the premise, and saw it already had several 5 star reviews. I found it impossible to classify, so have reluctantly created a "literary fiction" shelf, which seems a waste, since it will have so few books on it. I'm not going to think about my inability to just leave it unclassified... It has sci-fi, historical fiction and erotica elements, is set in a mildly dystopian near future world, and borders on gothic horror at times. Do NOT read this because of the comparisons with Outlander, you would be sorely disappointed, this is definitely not a romance novel.

Jeff, unspecified age, full of self-loathing and dying of an unspecified disease, runs away from his home in Australia, to a remote corner of Scotland, so that his family will not force him to go through the treatment which might prolong his miserably introspective life. A friend has given him an experimental piece of technology, designed as potential entertainment to distract people from the tedium of their lives, which allows the user to enter the mind of someone in the past for a short period of time. Jeff finds himself inside Leonora, a bright young woman from the 1860s Scottish Highlands, who is intrigued by animal biology and quite content living with her widower father. Her peaceful life is shattered when her father remarries, and she is sent first to the nearby town, to work in a hotel, and then, when she gets too close to the handsome young laird, to Edinburgh, to stay with her upwardly socially mobile widowed aunt.
Increasingly aware of someone her mind, and subject to Jeff's lust for teenage boys, Leonora struggles to make her way through the constraints of middle-class Edinburgh society. Jeff tells his story to his android servant, aware of what he is doing to her, but unable to stop, as his guilt eats away at him, like his disease.

In terms of comparisons, to me this is most like Margaret Atwood, bleak and dreamlike in places, but short on details of context. I wanted to know more about Jeff's world - there are hints, but not enough for me. I did not enjoy reading about Jeff's sexual obsessions and memories of both his ill-fated marriage and grubby encounters with his wife's young brother. The frequent literary references mostly went over my head. I did enjoy Leonora's story, and was interested in her meetings with young Edinburgh doctors, including the first female medical students, and the prevailing theories about mental illness.
The writing was fine, it didn't do much for me - I have read better prose recently from crime fiction novelists. Jeff further plummeted in my estimation when he laments that his story could end up being told by a pulp fiction writer, rather than a literary author - as if that's the worst thing that could befall him.

Overall, this was not my cup of tea, but I don't regret reading it, and would recommend it if you like this type of dirty speculative fiction. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this book I just loved completely, other parts I found myself skimming through. It is such an interesting mix of historical fiction (the parts I loved) and science fiction (the parts I had problems with) and the meshing of these two so distinct storylines was well done but at times too confusing and strange. It certainly is well written, almost lyrically written in parts. The observations of nature and the wildness of Scotland through the eyes of Leonora were stunning, the book is worthwhile just for this. And, you can hear that there is a but coming.

So, you've got Jeff who has scurried off to the west of Scotland to die, he takes with him an automaton who will take care of him he believes, he also has a device which enables him to live life through the eyes and mind of another person, he should only enter their life 3 times but of course, he can't help himself and he spends a lot of time being Leonora, a young woman who lives on a farm with her father. You have an alternating story line, firstly through Jeff's eyes as he examines his life, loves and losses. Then you have Jeff, living Leonora's life, her beginning of fondness for the Laid, the relationship of her father and his new wife and Leonora's struggle as she is swept away to Edinburgh to the care of her thoroughly weird aunt.

There is a lot going on. And remember you've got alternating paragraphs. It almost feels like you have two side by side novels, which I guess was the goal. I wonder if this rather good author tried to do a bit much. Having said that it is engaging, the tech is clever and well thought out. Maybe it is Jeff, I just couldn't care about him. He seems like a pillock and I always find it hard to read a character I don't like. On the other hand I loved Leonora, I hated what Jeff was doing to her and I was really invested in her survival.

All in all it is complicated and at times totally fabulous, I've dithered about writing this review and how many stars I'd give it, I'd love to hear someone elses opinion of it, I see the reviews below are very mixed, and I guess that might make it a really good novel, people are polarised, for me it is half way there.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

* I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book. *

Jeff is dying. He flees from his home in Australia to the north of Scotland so that he can die alone, haunted by the secrets of his past. He takes with him an experimental technology that allows him to inhabit the mind of another person, in another time. While he has been warned not to overuse it, it is a temptation that he struggles to resist.

Leonora is a young woman living in the Highlands in 1860. Living alone with her widowed father on a small farm, Leonora likes nothing more than the company of animals. However, her father remarries and sends her to Edinburgh to live with her aunt and prepare herself for the seemingly inevitable marriage.

Leonora starts to sense intrusions into her mind, seeing visions and hearing unusual music. She suspects that these are some kind of spiritualist experiences and seeks help. She also feels drawn towards some medical students that she encounters at the university, company that her aunt does not approve of.

Meyer touches on issues of gender fluidity, class differences, the dawn of feminism, the exploitation of women, the imminence of death, the abuse of technology and a few other weighty concepts, all in the space of about 350 pages. Her characterisations are excellent. Leonora is easy to feel for, a fairly typical historical romance heroine. Meyer does very well to present the fundamentally flawed person that is Jeff in a light that does not lead to the visceral rejection you might expect. I was surprised at the degree of empathy that I felt for him.

This is a really good debut from an Australian author of great promise.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Superior Spectre captivated me right from the first page. It is a fascinating study of human nature and what makes up our sense of self. It also considers personal responsibility when our actions impact on the lives of others. This was a real page-turner that kept me on the edge of my seat, wanting to know what would happen next and how things would work out. Although there is a sci-fi element to the tale, this work sits firmly on the literary fiction shelf. It offers both an exciting, interesting plot and a deep, thought-provoking premise. I would recommend it to readers looking for a read that poses questions while also entertaining. I would definitely read more from Meyer in the future as her prose still was simple yet engaging, her pacing excellent, and her characters beautifully formed.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley.

[Rachael McDiarmid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual mix of genres here but it works wonderfully well. I’m not surprised this book has a buzz - it’s Angela afterall! She fed my curiosity and made me turn the pages. I was fascinated with both Jeff and Leonora and the times they lived in. Worlds apart indeed, but ultimately as one. I found her story wonderful, as I enjoy my historical fiction very much. And his world was futuristic and modern and raw. It was more recognisable. I loved having it set in Scotland and enjoyed many of the descriptions and her approach to writing generally. I believe the book releases in Australia in August. Look out for it in your local bookshops then. ARC supplied by publisher.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

This isn't my type of genre but I thought I'd give it a go. I struggled with the whole entire book, finished it and am still wondering what I read.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read Angela Meyer’s fiction before, so I knew she had a taste for the macabre, but her debut novel A Superior Spectre is very different to her flash fiction collection Captives. When I read Captives in preparation for our session at the Stonnington Literary Festival in 2015 I wrote this:

"If you’ve ever met Angela, (as a well-known literary journalist and editor she’s out and about at all sorts of literary events) you will know that she has a vibrant personality. The room lights up when she’s around, she sparkles like classy champagne. So I am intrigued by her preoccupation with the macabre (and will be exploring this at the Stonnington LitFest). Where does this come from, this fascination with the noir, the creepy and the eerie? There are no vampires or ghouls in this collection, but there is horror of a different sort, signalled by the very first story…."

A Superior Spectre is different to Captives in form because it’s a novel and a genre bending novel at that, but the underlying tone is also of horror. Not in that silly pulp fiction kind of way, but instead casting a dawning sense of a frightening future that might not be within our control. A future eerily like 1984 which has haunted us ever since George Orwell wrote it. The blurb talks of Angela’s interest in Scotland, gender, masculinity and the future of neuroscience, and how the historical richness of Outlander meets the powerful dystopian feminism of Margaret Atwood but appealing as that image of sexy men in kilts might sound, it’s a bit misleading.

Scotland, richly textured as it is, is only the backdrop for a man on the run. Like George Orwell writing 1984 on the remote island of Jura, Jeff is dying and he’s on the run from life. He has a story to tell, and it’s also a kind of warning, but there the similarities end. The time is 2024, and he’s left Australia to avoid pursuit by those who love him because he does not want them to know what a contemptible creature he is. And while his ambition is to inflict penance on himself through self-denial, his baser instincts triumph. He abuses the hi-tech toys he has brought with him and so the story he ends up telling is not the one that he thought he would share.

Jeff has a piece of experimental tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past, and his hapless victim is Leonora from the 1860s. (There are no kilts, though there are corsets). In chapters that weave in and out of Jeff’s narrative, Leonora narrates the travails of life as an intelligent but dependent woman from the Highlands. Her ambitions are not unrealistic for the period...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/07/21/a...

[Monique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for a free copy of this remarkable book.

Jeff lives in an alternative present, or perhaps a near future, creepily reminiscent of Margaret Atwood, with a touch of J D Robb’s mid-21st Century urban life and the television series “Humans” where androids help us out at home, the state has too much control over our lives and health and technology has merged with the human body. He has a “tab” which allows him to enter the mind of a historical person for a time.

Leonora is a young Scottish woman who lives in the highlands in the 1860s. She lives with her father, her mother having died when Leonora was very young, and helps out with the animals on the farms on the Laird’s land. Her life is simple and she is happy, until things start to change, and she is sent to live with her aunt in Edinburgh. There, her life spirals out of control.

This is a beautifully written novel. The language is lyrical and atmospheric, but often frank and sometimes confronting. This is a warts-and-all account of Jeff and Leonora’s lives and the societies they live in. I could barely put this novel down and enjoyed the fast-paced action as well as the quiet, contemplative moments. The author has a special ability to set a scene and evoke the atmosphere her characters are experiencing.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and look forward to reading the author’s future work.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those rare gems that plays with science fiction themes but which would sit solidly on the literary fiction shelf.

It's not about the tech; there's a new world in 2024, but that's not the focus of the novel. Instead, we explore themes of regret and self-loathing, of the way a human being can feel caged in their society or within their own minds, but freedom is all that we seek -- and this is just as true now as it was one hundred years ago, and the way it will be a hundred years from now.

Meyer bounced between third person and first person, but this is done clearly, and with no confusion as to whose head we reside within.

It's still unclear whether I even liked the main character, the one who did most of the talking -- but that was the point. We're not always supposed to like the protagonist, are we? This would be a fantastic bookclub read (so long as the members of said bookclub are open-minded).

[Gary Kemble · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been putting off writing this review because I know that my review won't do Angela Meyer's A Superior Spectre justice.

Blending historical fiction and Black Mirror-esque science fiction, A Superior Spectre explores human frailty, desire, shame, as well as the nature of madness and time itself. Angela's descriptions of Scotland are rich yet subtle, like a good single-malt whisky, and left me longing to walk Edinburgh's streets once more, or ramble through the Highlands.

I finished A Superior Spectre a couple of weeks ago and yet, much like the book's protagonist Jeff, I find myself drawn back time and again to its melancholic embrace.

Disclosure: Angela commissioned my first two novels, Skin Deep and Bad Blood, for Echo/Bonnier.

[Craig Hildebrand-Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taken separately, the two narrative threads of Angela Meyer’s A Superior Spectre are straightforward.

In one, Jeff is dying. Set in a recognisable near-future time, he is at first fleeing Australia for Scotland, and then withdrawing entirely not just from his past life, but from life itself. The specific reasons for his withdrawal drip-feed into the story gradually, and while he may not be a sympathetic character, and at time severely strains the reader’s ability to empathise with him, there is a pervasive sadness to his existence.

Jeff’s world is dusted lightly with vague details of future technology: a robot servant that Jeff is both in need of and repulsed by; implanted identification; and digestible tabs that allow an individual to ‘trip’ into the consciousness of an individual from the past. He is escaping from himself, one chapter at a time.

In the other narrative, Leonora is reaching adulthood in mid-19th century Scotland. At first she struggles with her father’s new marriage, then her arranged relocation to Edinburgh, she isn’t so much wanting to live her own life as she is wanting to be allowed to discover just what her own life can be. At one point she is struck at the possibility that she can be a woman and choose not to get married, not to follow a path that is defined by her relationship to other men.

Leonora’s story, however, takes on some Gothic trappings when she becomes haunted by voices and hallucinations. Her grip on her waking reality is impaired, her interactions with others – particularly men – become fraught with confusion as she doubts her own decisions, her own desires, and how much the haunting is taking over her life.

Taken separately, a reader can comfortably compartmentalise each narrative and each protagonist into coherent and distinct genres. But put together, at first through duelling points of view and then later through an increasingly fractured and fluid first person voice where one character bleeds into the other, A Superior Spectre becomes something else entirely.

Jeff is not just escaping his life to die alone in Scotland, he is escaping reality to haunt Leonora’s consciousness. Meyer infuses the reader’s experience of the story with the trauma that Jeff is inflicting on Leonora. Her story becomes not her own, and her consciousness is defined by Jeff’s vicarious invasion of her mind. He is reading her story for his gratification, and by reading it confirms its tragedy. It is gaslighting by way of time travel.

This dovetailing of the two voices in A Superior Spectre creates a hall of mirrors about reading. To compare Leonora’s story to other historical fictions is to become complicit in Jeff’s haunting: do we read other stories to escape our own? And, in reading them, do we confirm on these characters a life of conflict and tragedy and trauma that only exists because we are there, spectres in the minds of these characters?

To judge Jeff harshly is easy. There is something Frankensteinian about his macabre retreat to remote Scotland, complete with a humanoid creation, designing to manufacture life through the erasure of a woman’s story. But we can’t escape him and feel salvaged, because we are there, too. Meyer collapses the distance we might have from the story by removing any objective point of view, acknowledging both the limitation and the implication of first-person narrative:

“It will feel strange, to start with, speaking as Leonora into William’s ear. I don’t, for example, know how to represent her accent (which does also occur in her thoughts)…I am tainted by my own time, my own context. We always experience other people’s stories this way, though, don’t we?”

We do. For all the distaste readers might feel in Jeff’s story, we are a part of it. Are these Pirandello-esque characters in search of readers for their stories, or trying to be free of them?

This is not to say that A Superior Spectre is lamenting the impact of reading, but rather it is an opportunity to acknowledge what reading does to us and for us. We cannot escape forever to these favoured characters, longing for release from the reality of our lives. To read is to empathise, whether it be the detestably sad Jeff or the admirably tragic Leonora, but if all we do is read and keep ourselves removed from the act of reading, then nothing is gained.

For men, in particularly, the suggestions of Meyer’s story are profound. Would we read Leonora’s story if it were not through Jeff? Beacuse if we do, we might then allow that empathetic reading to bleed into our realities, to avoid the othering, the dehumanising, the removal of agency from women that men seem to manage so often.

A Superior Spectre doesn’t just transcend the genres of its protagonists, it transcends the act of reading. You can’t help but emerge from the novel, waking as Jeff does from his trips to Leonora’s mind, and be struck by both the temporal magic of reading and the responsibility it bequeaths you, the spectral reader.

[Jo | Booklover Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This cleverly titled novel is an intriguing mix of gothic psychological thriller and dystopian science fiction. In A Superior Spectre Meyer explores the inner workings of the mind, the home of desires and passions deemed unseemly either by society, their hosts, or both; offering up through creative extrapolation, the personal insight that may be gained by experiencing the world in another’s shoes.

Meyer’s dark and often disturbing depiction of the physical impact Jeff’s self-inflicted shame has on the otherwise strong-willed and free-thinking Leonara, serves as a powerful metaphor for the unseen control myriad day-to-day decisions of disclosure wield in relationships. Read full review >>

[MargeryK · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great read - I hoped it would be and I wasn't disappointed. The characters are drawn well and Meyer is able to flit between genders and time periods adroitly and convincingly.

It is such a rich book with attention to all of the readers' desires - sights, smells, nature plus and literary nods.

I'm going to be recommending this to many of my friends.

I was privileged to meet the author many years ago in Edinburgh and I have kept abreast up with her works since. I was very excited to order this paperback through Book Depository (they do worldwide shipping). Thank you Angela for a ripping yarn.

[B.P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't think I'd enjoy this book this much considering it has elements of period drama. This period element just forms part of the setting of the book, a way to contrast limitations put on women in the past and imagining how such women might experience our more liberal times. The author also explores the story of a modern male, who has lived his own constricted life and goes back into the past to try and liberate himself from shame and guilt. Quite a few interesting themes!

[Teresa Bower · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sounded like an interesting book. Set in the near future it is a sort of time travel story but only in the mind. However, I found Jeff to be a most unlikeable person and in many ways disturbing. Leonora, on the other hand, was a much more likeable character and I enjoyed her story. I wanted to keep reading, hoping that there would be a good outcome for her. The actual end was rather rushed and ultimately I was disappointed with it and the whole book.