Set on an inhospitable future earth, Maria Takolander’s The End of Romance is a violent dystopia – and it’s relatable. Life is hard here. Humanity clusters in degraded urban settlements, scrounging off what’s left of the old world. The planet’s sick of us, has been made sick by us. Nothing grows except cacti and the air is poisoned by a fog that behaves, sometimes, like it might be sentient. The only hope for survival is a distant planet known as the Promised Land. An interstellar colonial war