Jeanette Winterson, Weight, 2005

A mischievous (and brief) retelling of the myths of Atlas and Heracles infused with some imaginative cosmology. It somehow resolves into a curiously direct form of science fiction, one that cuts through the tropes and gets down to a core theme: the self-imposed boundaries we have and our necessary liberation from them. One of those off-centre book many SF fans would like.

Michel Faber, The Fire Gospel, 2008

The tenth in Canongate’s series on myths, this one being modelled loosely on the story of Prometheus stealing fire from Zeus and giving it to mortals, but there any proper connection to mythology ends and the satire begins. A cynical Canadian researcher in a ransacked museum in war-torn Iraq stumbles upon a hidden manuscript written by a man who knew Jesus, and a sudden lust for fame and money drives him to publish it as The Fifth Gospel, go on an American book tour and risk the wrath of Christians, Arabs, homocidal maniacs and Amazon reviewers alike. Wickedly funny for the most part, with Faber sharing exactly the kind of vicious, ascerbic humour of fellow Dutch author Cees Nooteboom. Faber must have had a very good time writing this.  PY

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Louise Welsh, Tamburlaine Must Die, 2004

Historical novels are often helped by having damn good covers, and this is a case in point. Inside, Louise Welsh has conjured a completely engrossing fiction out of the mysterious last days of the 16th Century playwright Christopher Marlowe, as he is forced to find out who is imitating one of his most famous characters, Tamburlaine, with the intention of sending Marlowe himself to the gallows. Welsh employs a playfulness with language that reads with great conviction (even her use of the Anglo-Saxon ‘fuck’ is legitimate); nor does she go in for endless florid detail, instead getting down to a very robust kind of sketching that captures her characters with merely a few bold strokes. It reads like a fast and fleeting look through a window into the past, the dialogue is excellent, the pacing perfect and the end result memorable.   PY