The Year of the Badgers

This book isn t just a highly enjoyable one, it s a really important one too.Set in the very near future, this novel encapsulates the red tape problems of the system which cause poverty and homelessness Zero hour contracts and their like, work placements serving the quota statistics of politicians rather than the actual people, the injustices of big business tax evasion and all that stuff.In this story, people on benefits are issued badges to pay for some essentials You can have tea, but not cof [...]

This was a meaningful book which takes a look at a plausible future not too far away from where we are heading in the UK Our protagonist, Badger, is riddled with anxiety and all the odds are stacked against him when an accident leaves him unable to find a job He s shoehorned into a workfare programme which is like the one we presently have only a little bit nastier Imagine Iain Duncan Smith s wet dream and you get the idea People are forced to work crap positions for no money and with no real wa [...]

The most terrifying book you ll ever read There are a lot of dystopian books about, some are grim like 1984, some are full of zombies and some have games for hungry people The common thing about those books is that any possibility of them happening are way, way in the future, that means you can sit down and enjoy reading the book The Year of the Badger is different, it is a dystopian future that is just around the corner, all this could easily happen in our lifetime, many of us could become badg [...]

Paul Howsley s The Year of the Badgers speaks with a clear voice, one that resonates with the strained timbres of the dispossessed, the neglected and the put upon As society struggles with the vast and seemingly insurmountable inequalities that have become ingrained over a time where the grasping few at the top have had it especially good, those at the so called bottom face the unenviable task of living in a world that doesn t want to forget them, but hold them up as a distraction and example So [...]

This ain t no dystopia it s a TOPIA A today pia It s today It s about contemporaryopia It happened It s happening Dystopias can be in the present too, right Ah, why don t YOU Google this one for a change writing reviews is hard This is a very important novel that brings an emotional narrative to the cold logic of political issues, showing the grim and unrelenting lives of regular folk plugging away why, why It s no fun There is a beautiful authorial cinematic quality to the prose and a real achi [...]

Paul Howsley s The Year of the Badgers captures, often painfully, the reality of life in modern Britain for the poor, sick, disabled and for those who have simply disappeared from view Where the novel is at its best is when it delineates daily agonies the heartrending fear of the brown envelope through the letterbox I wonder if postmen are aware of their new status as monstrous messengers the division of change into copper and silver and subsequent alchemy of turning those into food and rent and [...]

Following a work accident that leaves him permanently handicapped, instead of getting a compensation Badger has lost his job because the company s computer said so After 6 month of unemployment, which has left his self respect and self confidence in shatters he is finally placed into the government s work program But soon he realizes that the promises of a chance for permanent employment after the trial period are empty and the program is nothing else but a slave labor deal created by insiders b [...]