The Invention Of Morel

Author: Adolfo Bioy Casares

Adolfo Bioy Casares was the lifelong friend and occasional collaborator of Jorge Luis Borges, but he was also a considerable writer of fantastic literature in his own right, and nothing quite matches the strange, haunting quality of The Invention of Morel. A fugitive reaches a deserted island, where he plans to hide out. But then he finds there are other people on the island, dressed in party clothes and wandering about in deep conversation, and none of them seems to even notice the fugitive. They are there again the next day, in the same clothes, in the same places, having the same conversations, and they remain unaware of the fugitive. He starts to fall in love with one of the women, but he can't get her to even look at him. Then he discovers strange technology hidden in an isolated building.Why it's on the listThe name of Morel was intended as a reference to H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr Moreau, but though Bioy Casares clearly echoes some of the creepy themes of that novel, he also takes it in a wholly original direction with the introduction of something resembling holograms, and with the effect of that technology on the original person.