Dystopian Fiction



The beginning of our second week of isolation: this morning there was a thick frost and Sascha's early morning walk was distinctly bracing, but I've just come in after serving lunch to the ponies and I'd left my fleece indoors.

One of the joys of country living is that Hungerford is only 20 minutes away and among its other attractions it has an award-winning independent bookshop. The owners run an innovative series of events, author appearances and signing sessions and last Autumn we went to one of the best: Robert Harris (who lives in the next village in a house that boasts a superlative Duck House) was going to be interviewed about his new novel by Jon Snow (of C4 News fame rather than the one in Game of Thrones) who also lives locally and we pass his house on one of our regular weekend dog walking routes.

Older readers will recall the political turmoil of last Autumn (the attempted prorogation of Parliament, numerous knife edge votes and a general election); as a result of this Jon Snow was delayed and Robert Harris had to interview himself for five minutes so he read a few pages from opening chapter of his book. A major influence was Thomas Hardy, but there is a hint even before the end of the second page that all is not as it seems, ie the time is definitely out of joint.


When Jon Snow arrived he explained that he had been one of the first readers of the novel and thus had been in a unique position: there were no reviews for him to read (or ignore) so he knew nothing, came to the text cold and had been hooked from the first chapter. I read my copy in just over a week and fully agree with him.

Robert Harris then explained that one of his inspirations had been noticing the way that so much of contemporary life depended on extended supply lines and just in time delivery. These are quotes from a document written in 2025 that the hero discovers as a historical record from his point in the future:

“London existed at any moment only six meals removed from starvation”
 “Society has reached a level of sophistication that renders it uniquely vulnerable to total collapse”
The back cover of the novel also contains a chilling warning against complacency:


History, most definitely, is not bunk.

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