The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis

The Meat Tree

Gwyneth Lewis

Alan Garner's 'The Owl Service' meets HAL from '2001: a Space Odyssey' in an orgy of blood, lust, incest, magic, bestiality, shape-shifting, murder, betrayal and power struggles. What else would you expect when a tale from Welsh mythology is transported to an abandoned space craft Gwyneth Lewis re-imagines wonderfully the tale of Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Blodeuwedd for a modern audience.

Extract
Synapse Log 4 Feb 2210, 18:30

Apprentice
I'm beginning to like Campion. He's smarter than he looks. Though I don't know what he's on about half the time. Clever of him to take the female roles. He's been respectful. After that rape when I was Goewin, I don't think I could have been the passive one in all that incest and bestiality. He's not to know what happened to me on Mars surface. I've had to work hard to hide it in the Joint Thought Channel, but I'm pretty sure that he hasn't a clue. A repeat of that would destroy me. I told him I'd kill him if I was raped again in VR and I meant it.

We've done the magic three years in the forest: it should be the end of our punishment. Can't wait to see what the programme does next.

Right, I'm all in. Who'd have thought that following an entertainment system could be so exhausting? Channeller on. Good night.
Parallels
  • The Owl Service by Alan Garner
  • The Mabinogion (Tales of the Heroes) by Sioned Davies (translator)
  • 2001: a Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke
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Violence
Explicit sexual content