By Ross Patrick
Published by Brown Dog Books (Self-Publishing Partnership)
327 pages ISBN 9781839523823
Publication date 27 January 2022
I was sent an electronic copy of the novel to participate in its Blog Tour. Many thanks to Brown Dog Books, Ross Patrick and Team LitPR for allowing me to participate in the tour.
From the blurb
This is rebel fiction…
Synopsis
It’s the future and life has changed from what we know it. “Everything is ruined.” New technologies and the financial systems have failed and so people are retreating to the old ways. Much of the world has entered a New Dark Age.
The rich have retreated to walled city states leaving the rest to fend for themselves in an outlaw wilderness where bands of ‘roamers’ operate. Much of the apparatus of state is no more and big corporations have taken over in this vacuum and formed militarised police. Even though they receive nothing from the state the countryside poor are still highly taxed and there is a regular census of assets to determine what tax should be paid.
However, rebellion is fomenting. There is Hereward an outlaw like a modern-day Robin Hood with his own militia. Then there are the Hermits, the messengers and conduits for those in resistance. The Woke are the organised opposition who believe the day of reckoning is coming. Scotland and the North are ready to act.
In Fenby young Esme is due to be wed but feels her destiny is elsewhere. She can choose between a quiet life in The Fens or join the exodus to London and risk everything.
My thoughts
Novels and films set in a post-apocalyptic future were very popular in the 1970s. Most focused on the world following a nuclear war but as the nuclear arms proliferation receded and such a war became unlikely then they ran out of steam as a genre. A New Dark Age is set in a dystopian near future, a novel for the twenty first century with warnings of what may be to come based upon the world as it is today. It covers themes of wealth and income distribution, the haves and have nots, state control over the individual and even Brexit rears its ugly head with Eastern Europeans being exiled.
The novel is set in 2061 in a Britain that has suffered immense social breakdown, like much of the globe; China and India have grown into new world powerhouses. The decline was brought on by wars over natural resources like oil and cobalt and exasperated by financial meltdown over debt and mismanagement of finances. This is all too worryingly credible. Already the world is under pressure over energy security and whilst wind and solar may be the future for mankind we will be reliant upon oil and gas for some years ahead. Rare earth metals are vital to our modern way of life with electronic and computers relying upon them. China is investing heavily in mining operations in Africa in exchange for infrastructure development and the future could be one where the power is held by the holders of raw materials rather than those who exploit it. Much of the West would then be left with inflation, financial speculation and risk taking. The world is changing ever more rapidly.
Life in this new world is well imagined by the author, naturally he has a blank canvas to create what he wishes, and he has pitched it nicely with a mix of the current and the modern past. Cars are useless and rotting as there is no fuel, transport is by electric vehicles where the batteries still work and you can find a place to charge them. The internet has largely gone, what computers and technology there is suffer from a lack of components and spare parts.
The novel is narrated in the third person and switches from person to person. There is a large cast of characters involved and some crop up again when least expected. The pacing is slow, as the backdrop of the fens is described, then about a third of the way through there is an unexpected urgency of a battle scene and then the pace slows again. As the characters must rely on old technology of rowing boats, rafts and busses then this slow pace is probably appropriate. This is not a traditional action thriller it is much more observational and to me reads as if setting up the boundaries for a series of novels.
With so many characters one cannot expect too many to be well fleshed out. In Esme we have a heroine who is likeable and at the beginnings of adulthood. We see her in her sheltered life on The Fens facing an arranged marriage to the mayor’s son but unsure if that is the life for her with rebellion in the air. We see her facing this dilemma, coping with violation and then stepping out into the danger of the wider world. All of this is nicely judged and sensitively handled. Esme’s childhood friend Big Davey is slow witted but is caring, helpful and loyal, just the sort it is impossible not to like. Esme’s father warns her about turning down marriage that she might end up with Davey and the reader thinks would that be such a bad thing. He also gets his moment to play with big boys’ toys which is quite apt.
In the State Agents Miller and McCain, we have two thoroughly unpleasant and sinister authority figures. They abuse their positions and enjoy the harm they cause. Men in black who work as census officers and revel in being bullies. This is a perfect big man and little man, brains and brawn double act.
With social breakdown comes a breakdown in trust. There is no common cause or common good. Can bin Salah with his London fiefdom or the mysterious Doc be trusted even when the bait of the fabled Maltese Falcon? This leads to a real sense of mistrust and paranoia running through the second half of the novel even when the characters see it as being destiny. Best summarised by the rebel leader Wat Tyler when he approaches Prime Minister King, “if the Government don’t kill me for treason our followers will for betrayal.”
A New Dark Age is a creatively imagined dystopian future which could await mankind. Very much a novel for the new century with its very real and urgent problems. A thought provoking and entertaining read.
Peter turns the page 