I’ve learnt in 2021 that I love a re-release, especially a Faber one. They feel like pockets of a blurred time that speak clearly and directly to me.

‘They’ is filled with a wistful menace, with sentences like 'We moved dreamily, sun-soaked, down through the valley of wheat.' bordered by the constant danger of Them.

The tension lies in the vagueness of these creatures (humans? aliens? neither?) that haunt the story. They move around the margins, taking away art and making and remaking societal rules. They feel monstrous and very human at the same time and now that I think about it, they reminded me a bit of the Grey Men from Michael Ende’s Momo – a force of uniformity and erasure of individuality.

Even though it’s ‘A sequence of unease’, there is a lot of love and hope in how the characters just keep going. They make artist enclaves, they memorise books and plays, they die and are remembered and their people move on because it’s the only thing one can do.

I think my favourite bit was ‘The Fairing’, where the main character goes to visit a friend with clear instructions for how to get there and it becomes a labyrinthine descent into paranoia. I could feel the veins in my forehead pulsing, it was so tense.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and it felt a bit like a magic trick – the moment I finished it, I forgot everything that went on.

Thank you to Faber and Faber and Netgalley for the free review copy!

Advanced review copy provided by Netgalley for an independent, honest review
A quiet scream of a dystopian book. Fear creeps through every page, and it made me want to hide all of my books away and love my loved ones as hard as I can. Plus, anything Carmen Maria Machado recommends, I'll buy two copies of.

They is a novella that depicts a world where "They", a mysterious group of people, prey upon artists and intellectuals, enacting shocking systemic violence as they go. The novel is set on a remote British island, which further adds to the oppressive nature of the book. Where do you go when you have nowhere to run, when the cities have all been purged of beauty and the people you love get sent to be "corrected" in mysterious towers on the coast with windowless rooms and endless TV screens?

It's important to note that They does have a single narrator but feels more like a series of short stories in the same universe set in thereabouts the same location, tied together by the singular threat of "them". Vignettes, almost. I really liked this structure, but I can understand how people can feel disoriented by this.

I think saying I enjoyed this book would be a different way of putting it. But I think it's an important one to read, as so much good dystopia should be required reading for the world we live in right now.

I'm not sure it's necessary to revisit this classic in 2022. It's intriguing, especially at the start, when we follow a mysterious "They" who slip in during the night and destroy art, books and music, but the vague narrative by the unnamed narrator quickly became tedious and I longed for more information or something concrete to sink my teeth into. Ogawa's The Memory Police is this book but better, in my opinion. Machado's introduction was interesting, though.

A very intriguing and disturbing glimpse of a future which feels powerfully in the tradition of Wyndham, Christopher.

They are everywhere, but they are invisible.

They are calculating, cruel and absolute. They burn books and silence music. They do not tolerate people who choose to live alone or differently. They do not tolerate resistance, and they will show no mercy to anybody who even thinks about not doing things how they demand.

But our narrator thinks, and creates. As they move around the shadows of the counrtyside with other artists and thinkers who would be destroyed if caught by them. But still, they persevere, and silently hope for their creation to one day outweigh the destruction.

"Destruction doesn't count. One can always create again."

There is an unsettling and striking symmetry in the story of They and its author Kay Dick. When this novel was first published in the 1970's, it seemed the world just wasn't ready for it and it was pulled from print. Sadly Kay passed away in 2001 and now their work is being rediscovered once more. Now as we live through many of our own personal dystopias, Dicks writing resonates unwelcomely and forces us to ask questions about creation - is it worth creating art, writing novels, making music when nobody is looking? What happens when art fades into history, do we have a duty to remember it?

Our narrator is a non-gendered, non-named, undescribed human of our own imagination, and their storytelling was strange. The style jumped from flowing and descriptive to blocky and blunt - it didn't always make sense, but somehow the feelings always translated through the pages without the need for explanation.

Our nameless narrator and our villains are only identified by the word 'They' - blurring the lines even further in a way that only a captivating dystopian novel truly can. Our villians slowly strip away creativity and individuality, making it seem like there is a choice but really there isn't - and in a way that's more terrifying than outright control. It draws the reader in to question everything - especially about inaction, and whether inaction is really action on the side of the oppressor.

"Any attempt to give up was playing into their hands. Inaction was what they wanted."

If you're looking for an easy, clear, fully-resolved story, put this book back on the shelf and back away slowly. They isn't any of that - it is a short story that is enigmatically nightmarish and chaotic, both an electric celebration of expression, queerness and freedom and also an uneasy warning about how close we are to any number of dystopias if we let them take control.

A short story collection that deals with a chilling vision of the future: a mysterious group, known only as They, coming to ransack, injure and destroy art and its creators. The end goal is total obidience, a destruction of individuality, community, and humanity. First published in 1977, Dick's collection is grounded by a foreword by Carmen Maria Machado, who gives clarity to a dense and sometimes confusing narrative.

This dystopian vision is reminiscent of Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police, or, as Machado points out, Jacqueline Harpman's I Who Have Never Known Men. However, both of these books perform much the same functions with a defter hand - I found myself deeply confused by Dick's narrative - we follow a nameless narrator(s?) through a series of close shaves against They, but it felt jumbled and slippery. I understand that this added to the absolutely wire-taut tension of the collection - parts of it are genuinely, deeply chilling - but having zero connection to the narrator made it difficult to care about outwitting the enemy.

The writing is crisp, concise and yet requires a lot of mulling over. The jumbling deliberately keeps the reader in the dark, mirroring the feelings of confusion and fear felt by the characters. And there are some truly beautiful turns of phrase throughout - "a cinnamon stretch of sand" is one that will stay with me.
If I was an artist myself, I'd have loved this book - and I am sure many will. I am glad Faber have re-issued it as I think it will blaze in many hearts, but for me, your average non-artistic reader, it lacked the clarity and focus to truly haunt me.

They by Kay Dick is a novel — or perhaps a short story collection — set in a dystopian world where artists are haunted by an authoritarian “they”. Here, books and artworks disappear from homes when the inhabitants are out. Here, the person who creates lives in a state of constant danger; always, they lurk in the woods, across the rivers, ready to sweep in and claim any creations. Here, the individualist is sent to retreats to be stripped of memory and identity. Here, the artist who makes a stand is blinded so they cannot paint, deafened so they cannot play, deformed so they cannot write. The poet who holds onto her poems is burned. The artist who rejoices in his work is corralled and killed, or else takes his own life.

The writing of this book is plain and often quick-moving, but the dialogue on art, the creeping sense of unease, and the creativity of these short stories balances it out. We rarely get details of the “they” which hunt and terrify our nameless, genderless protagonist and the protagonist’s friends, but the small details we’re given are chilling: “it was no good listening for footsteps; they wore no shoes”; “they have reduced speech to a minimum, to such an extent that they can barely articulate their words”; “they’ve read their psychology”.

First published in 1977 and recently rediscovered, a new edition is soon to be published by Faber & Faber with a foreword by Carmen Maria Machado. The foreword is, of course, lyrical, insightful, superb — I read it first, which I highly recommend. If you’re a fan of Machado’s blend of dystopia and social commentary, this little novel which Kay Dick called a ‘sequence of unease’ is certainly not to be missed.

Actual rating: 3.5/5

I feel SO lucky to have 1. gotten my hands on this book and 2. that is is getting a revival. I LOVED it. The sense of unease throughout this book is so thick it could be cut with a knife, but in the best way. The constant confusion, fear, wondering what will happen to everyone, and even wondering WTF is going on. Such a fantastic novel - I recommend to any and everyone.

i enjoyed this book! the descriptions were often gorgeous, evoking atmosphere through language both poetic and concise. my primary issue with this book is the premise. though i knew it was going to be a dystopia (which i typically don't enjoy), the premise of this dystopia was particularly annoying. a world without art, where artmaking is severely impeded and punished mercilessly by the infamous and unknowable 'they'. maybe i am a hater, but i think if you read blair mcclendon's such things have done harm, you may have a good idea of my reservations. i never enjoy 'artists for artists' media, it often reads horribly self-centred and lacks the sharp insight into humanity that i have come to appreciate in art, and i think that this novella most definitely falls into that category. also, as with almost all dystopian novels, it often feels like composer is trying a brand of suffering on for size, unbeknownst that its been enacted on many a person existing in real life (see: the banning of Tamil language literature, arts and communication in 'post-colonial' Sri Lanka). overall, well-written but perhaps not so timeless a classic.

holy sh*t! my first ARC! thank you so much Netgalley and Faber & Faber, provided in exchange for an honest review - hope me saying holy sh*t hasn't turned you off the idea.
I feel like I would absolutely adore this as a limited series. I really like exploring the world through an unnamed, undescribed character. I really liked the concepts put forward. but it never excited me.. I found it a lot more atmospheric and interesting than engaging. and the long sections of descriptive text are something that just turn my brain off. I'm so glad to have tried this though. And I really enjoyed how mysterious They remain. I would watch this as a show right now, but I wouldn't read this book again

It's not the fastest read despite its short length, but I had a great time reading it. Thank you for giving me a chance to check it before the official release.

This saved from obscurity republished novel is very much not my sort of thing (because I hate having to work too hard to piece together what’s going on and therefore can’t be doing with dystopian fiction) but I was lured in by the introduction from Carmen Maria Machado. I enjoyed the descriptions of nature and the many many dogs (up to a point…) but there was lots of this novel that just wasn’t for me as well. The sequence of the protagonist journeying through the village to their friend Tom’s house was every nightmare of being chased that I’ve ever had, a truly anxiety inducing experience to read. I also couldn’t keep track of the artist friends - Tom and Tim and Tessa and more, all barely introduced - which meant that I didn’t really care about their fates. Not terrible, just not for me.

‘They’ is short, sharp and flecked with beautiful musings on art and it’s importance on our survival. Carmen Maria Machado’s introduction was perfect at contextualising the narrative as I do think I would have struggled to follow what was going on without it.

Not quite a single story yet more than a collection of short stories the subtitle offers the most appropriate way to describe this book; it is 'A Sequence of Unease'. It offers a vision of a world dominated by an ideology that oppresses any manifestation of the creative spirit or assertion of identity. Art is destroyed, books are removed, music sheets vanish, poetry is forgotten. The nameless footsoldiers of this authoritarian ideology are referred to as 'they' and they prevail through fear, through keeping watch, and through meting out merciless punishment on those who resist.
'They' by Kay Dick is exquisitely written, brilliantly conceived. It possesses a bewitching quality. The foreword explains the history of this book, first published in 1977, and there is something prophetic about how it was nearly lost. Now back in print, it can finally take its place alongside titles like '1984', 'The Road' and 'The Handmaid's Tale'

First of all, I would like to thank Faber & Faber and Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy of this publication, in return for an unbiased review.

I'm genuinely of two minds about this short novella. It is a collected of multiple loosely related episodes, all written in the first person, all having different characters, and all having different settings (other then the link to arts and free expression that permeates the narratives). The main thing in common is the existence of a mysterious "they", who are never described in detail, but who exist on the edges of the narrative and create a sense of dread.

What I really liked about this is indeed that sense of dread. By not characterising "They" the author leaves their origin and their nature to the imagination. In the few glimpses of "They" it's unclear whether they are even fully human. There is also a very strong sense of them acting a bit like the "brown shirts" of Mussolini or their equivalent in Butler's Parable of the Sower. They seem to have unlimited power, and are tasked with enforcing rules that are never totally clear, but are terrorising the protagonists. It's the ambiguity of this terror and the absence of clarity that creates the real sense of discomfort.

On a related note, I also liked the way that the author described the gamut of human reactions to these events, and how even the most affected can delude themselves into thinking it will be ok, or, at works, becoming unwilling (or willing?) participants in the nightmare (which, again, is never truly described).

That being said, there are several things I struggled with. First, the writing style was too telegraphic for me, and lacked human emotions and complexity. It didn't feel real, and hurt the overall impression from the book. Secondly, while I appreciate the artistic innovation embodied in how the book is structured, it made it difficult to follow and get interested in. Essentially, the only reason I was able to finish the book was its brevity.

In short, form somehow trumped function in this novella, but it's the function that was the more interesting part of it for me. Perhaps in better hands the form could have been more accessible, making it into a great post apocalyptic novel to rival Parable of the Sower, or The Handsmaid's Tale.

I am a big fan of dystopian fiction so this was a very exciting read for me! I really enjoyed it, and I especially loved Carmen Maria Machado's introduction as a welcome addition. The joy of this text is in its subtlety and the undercurrents of fear and unrest, far more than many overt depictions of violence. It is almost gothic in tone. The writing is gorgeous, and the world of They is interesting and unsettling, but if you are a big fan of action and fast-moving plot then this isn't for you.

Set amid the rolling hills and the sandy shingle beaches of coastal Sussex, this disquieting novel depicts an England in which bland conformity is the terrifying order of the day. Violent gangs roam the country destroying art and culture and brutalizing those who resist the purge. As the menacing “They” creep ever closer, a loosely connected band of dissidents attempt to evade the chilling mobs, but it’s only a matter of time until their luck runs out.

Accompanied by an updated introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, Kay Dick’s They is an uncanny and prescient vision of a world hostile to beauty, emotion, and the individual.,

Thank you net galley for giving me an ARC of this forgotten classic.
Although I found the writing gorgeous, I found myself confused or bored most of the time. This is definitely a slow read with little to no action which is not what I usually enjoy. Nonetheless the conversations and themes are very interesting.

I love a dystopian.novel and particularly liked that this one had been republished after the authors death
The novel is a series of short interconnected stories linked by the fact that in thirds dystopian worlds different things were banned ,We read about a world where slowly people are loosing literature and art which are removed by the shadowy They of the title .Other things are banned in one story we hear of the fact that being alone is frowned on and people have to have parties with their neighbours to show that they are not being antisocial
The book reads at times like a nightmare ,the story of a woman following a route to who knows where simply by taking left and right forks along the road not knowing where she will end and how long it will take to get there ,will stay with me for a long while
I don’t normally enjoy reading short story collections but felt that this novel managed to hang the stories together successfully under the threat from the They of the title well enough to keep my interest

It was wonderful to be able to read this lost classic so many years after its original publication and I applaud Faber for re-issuing it. THEY is a very enigmatic series of stories/scenes which together portray a dystopian vision of future Britain in which individuality and artistic expression are under attack. It is eerie and beautifully written, sharing a style of narration with other postmodern and experimental science fiction of the same period.

My only criticism is that the introduction isn't very insightful and adds very little to the book, it would have been more interesting to read an introduction or afterword by someone familiar with the context of British SF in this era, I understand though that Carmen Maria Machado's name will draw more people to the book and in that sense it is useful.