Wolves

It*s the near future; the economy is running down, and so is the environment. When Conrad and Michel are at school, Micky is obsessed with the end of the world, and when we first meet him as an adult he and his wife are building an ark while he writes an apocalyptic novel about the world flooding. The novel is a success, but the flooding comes anyway. Meanwhile, Conrad*s father has developed a technology to allow blinded soldiers to see again, while Conrad himself works in the exciting new area of Augmented Reality. As civilisation starts to collapse around them, Micky and Conrad need to work out their complicated relationship and find out who murdered Conrad*s mother. And all the while, their lives are increasingly detached from a world that is never fully perceived.Why it*s on the list: Ings*s spectacular reinvention of the catastrophe novel has been compared to J.G. Ballard and William Gibson, but a more accurate comparison is probably to M. John Harrison. Bleak, raw, jagged, this is a novel that leaves you gasping for breath.