Snakes & Ladders

by Penelope Farmer

Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Penelope Jane Farmer is an English fiction writer well known for children's fantasy novels. Her best-known novel is Charlotte Sometimes (1969), a boarding-school story that features a multiple time slip.

Reviews

[Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts out with a fury. You don't know where it'll lead. Eventually ot becomes a slog, trying to make your way through what seems like endless repetition. And just when you think you might be nearing the end you suddenly find yourself having to repeat the last few chapters.

[Anthony Gardner · Rating 2 out of 5]

When her husband is recruited by a drug company to research epilepsy in the Third World, Anna Kern finds herself negotiating a series of ethical, political and marital hazards. Is she involved in an heroic enterprise, or a shabby bawd game? This is everything-but-the-kitchen-sink drama, with a plot which slithers from Keny to Ecuador, and a digressive format which embraces diaries, pseudo-scientific papers and chunks of Chambers Dictionary. The novel brims with intriguing questions and observations, so it is a shame that they are couched in such convoluted and bizarrely punctuated prose.