PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself
Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships
By Alfie Bown
Pluto Books £16.99
THERE’S a lot in this book, much of it alarming, some of it alarmist. Alfie Bown’s focus on the love industry’s hook-up with the gaming behemoth begins with a chaste kiss and fast forwards to hardcore data rape.
Yes, the intimate data making up dating sites is empowering, a cause for corporate and superpower mud-wrestles for control.
Of deeper concern is the manipulation of human desire and desirability; libido’s preconscious vulnerability to the stealthy algorithm like a wandering lamb to the salivating wolf.
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
Monster profits on the Tube, paternal dilemmas for time travellers, and an alien abduction buddy saga
FIONA O’CONNOR questions the achievement of this year’s Orwell prize winner for political fiction
ALEX HALL is fascinated by a lucid and historically convincing account of how rent has dominated capitalist economies from feudalism to modernity



