2023/120: The Year of the Fruit Cake: or Aliens with Irony — Gillian Polack

2023/120: The Year of the Fruit Cake: or Aliens with Irony — Gillian Polack

I know I don’t have a death stare in my real body (at least I think I know) but they should have given me one for my human suit. It would be very helpful for days like this. Experiencing statistics personally is an utterly vile thing. [p. 101]

The premise is simple: humanity is being Judged. The narrators are less simple: an alien technician and an alien anthropologist, both disguised as menopausal human women. The eponymous fruitcake is explained thus: '“Armageddon” is too long and ugly. “Collapse of all we hold dear” is too depressing and too long and not quite right. “Damn humans” is accurate, but doesn’t really describe an event in English, which is a strangely limited language. I might call it “fruitcake”.' [p. 33]. The result: a novel about female friendship, ageing, predestiny, corruption, amnesia and chocolate, set in Canberra in 2016.

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