Be informed

This is an epic – over 500 pages for the Picador paperback edition published in 2024. Of all of the cli-fi novels I have so far read (scroll in this blog to see the others), it is probably the most chilling. It is chilling because this is a novel informed by the scientific consensus about global warming: it is happening, life will become increasingly difficult in our lifetimes (and I am heading out of this world more than I am heading into it), civilisation will break down, though not universally (more on this below), and there will be violence. Oh, and there is a little sub-plot about machines that can either help us if we let them or kill us.

This review is full of spoilers – read no further if this book is on your reading list.

It is written in the first person, which is not my favourite style. Most of the characters are nameless; there are a few exceptions including the lead character’s wife, Sun, and their daughter, Ester. It is set on an Australian homestead run and worked by the lead character and his mother. Sun joins later. They are successful in growing food, raising fowl and harvesting water. They live underground for half of the year as the heat – over 55 degrees Celsius – is too much on the surface. The lead character is big into salvage and has a whopping great solar-powered truck (rig) to repatriate his finds. The economy is one of barter. People trade in the nearby hamlet through a co-op known as The Association.

One day, the lead character goes to the hamlet to trade for parts to repair a warped central axle on their barrel turbine caused by a recent storm. He encounters the Filmlayer, a trader with one eye and broken teeth. The Filmlayer was known to visit his mother. He grabbed the young man and frog-marched him to a shelter where he encounters a nameless woman whose payment for the new axle is his attention. He consents and is confronted by a visual display of the realities of the world transformed by the warming (wildfires, for example) along with fast moving images of houses, people, vehicles, “kit”, etc. He was being recruited to a highly secret organisation known as the The Service. A mixture of fear and curiosity led to his agreement to undertake the “Basic” training under the tutelage of a woman known as Awe.

The book starts somewhat close to the end (of the lead character’s story). Our character is in his rig along with a child searching for that one place to settle. He drives up to, what appears to be, a deserted mine, only to find it is occupied with a rather aggressive man, the Bowman, who takes them prisoner underground. It is in the course of one evening/night that our lead character tells the Bowman his story. It is an incredible one at that. We know that the oath to secrecy about the Service has gone, but we do not know why. The Bowman also claims to be a veteran and is equally scarred and disenchanted.

The Service

During the basic training, volunteers are inculcated with the purpose of the Service; namely to rid the world of networks and bloodlines of the people who caused the warming – largely the fossil fuel company bosses and their helpers. Because of their vast wealth from extraction, these people live in protected, remote and secret citadels. It is clear that a lot of intelligence work goes into finding the citadels and drawing up the plans to attack them in elaborate and complex operations involving planes, helicopters, ships and sophisticated weaponry.

Our lead character is a decorated veteran having been part of, or leader in, some of the most high profile raids. He played a leading role in the operation that saw off the so-called Exxons, for example, commonly referred to as the Utah operation. The Bowman claimed to be part of that operation, too. The story of that raid takes us into the bowels of the citadel revealing the privileged lifestyle of its residents, relative to homesteaders, city dwellers and itinerants.

In between these secret operations, the lead character maintains his life as homesteader. Sun enters as an apprentice vet who comes to the homestead to assess the health of the fowl. He is immediately smitten. When she finds out that she is no longer required by the vet she agrees to join the homestead and make a new life away from the city. They build their own house from salvage and the largesse that is a reward for service. And eventually they have a child whom they name Ester because of the association with the smell of sweet fruit and for the “warrior queen of the sagas” (p294)

By virtue of the fact that the lead character is no longer with Sun and Ester or his mother, we know that something happened along the way. Ultimately, there are two causes. Sun and Ester leave the homestead whilst the lead character is on an operation. The cause is a rumour that when he is away he is actually with another family in the South. His mother pleads with him not to go looking for them. The lead character convinces himself that they will be back. The second reason is the growing harshness of the climate. Storms not only flood homesteads but huge hailstones destroy everything – homes, growing houses, vehicles. Notwithstanding the increasing temperatures in which nothing grows. The homesteads’ self-sufficiency evaporates. The people become refugees heading south seeking cooling and new lives. After the death of his mother, our lead character continues alone for a few more seasons punctuated by one final mission: to get the Aramcos!

The Sims

The Aramco mission is like no other. Normal protocols are broken but defended by the leaders as necessary to destroy this critical citadel. They will use a proscribed weapon, fire. They travel by sea and are acclimatised to the extreme conditions on board wearing full combat gear and being forced to stand for long periods. Volunteers die during the voyage and are committed to the sea. Those that remain are tough, ready to do their service.

It does not go well. Whilst many enemy defenders are killed, it is impossible to penetrate the citadel not least because so many Service members are themselves killed. Our character is injured but is picked up and protected by 11 sims (p420) who seemingly were “slaves” of the Aramcos. Sims are human in form, seemingly partly organic, but most certainly electronic as witnessed when they are destroyed by fighters or others. Our character will have a later encounter with a sim after fleeing the homestead.

This group of sims are looking for liberation and they want to be taken to Australia and away from the desert. Our character reassures them that he will honour that wish in exchange for safe passage to the coast where the support ship is waiting for the escaping Service people. They take him through the searing desert under an insulation blanket as well as plying him with food and water. The personnel on the support ship do not wait for explanations and summarily destroy the sims. Another question is raised. And it is a significant one. Who is running all of this? A drone delivered ordinance, was it directed by human or is it autonomous? The sims only shrug at this question (p419).

As noted, our lead character has another encounter with a sim. On his search for sanctuary in the South he encounters a sim who has taken responsibility for an orphan child. He agrees to take them with him, despite being one extra mouth to feed (the sim is recharged by sunbathing). One evening they are confronted by three men who take her prisoner, sexually abuse her and then destroy her. Our lead character in turn kills them leaving him alone with the child. These are not the only people he uses violence against – a man caught trying to steel his water maker (clearly a valuable piece of kit) is beaten and has his wrist broken. Another has his rig burned and is left by the roadside bound and gagged.

The big questions

This final mission raises many questions that have not been asked earlier. Among them, who runs the Service? How does the intelligence work? How is the killing ultimately justified? Where does all of the kit come from? Should the current clan members be held responsible for the actions of their predecessors, even though they are living off the proceeds? Indeed, the Service volunteers have no history with the people who caused the warming. Indeed, our central character during basic training says “The dirty world is long gone. These people are dust now.” (p121) We may ask what kind of justice is being meted out and at what cost to Service volunteers (at best, diminished mental health at worst, death)? One final concern seems to be the secrecy and whose interests it serves. Whilst our lead character thinks that he is the only person in the Association who has been recruited, we learn later that that is not the case. Everyone is lying to everyone else all of the time. This is a society of zero trust. And for what? The World heats up relentlessly. The tipping points have been reached. No amount of killing is going to bring back the Holocene. “Maybe it was a mistake, I say. Trying to purify the world one dead body at a time.” (p461)

This reminds me very much of Richard Powers’ book, The Overstory, in which the protagonists’ direct action to protect a forest and its trees inadvertently leads to the death of loggers. A number of years pass and the group disperses with no accountability for their actions. That is until, for one of them, the guilt boils over and he implicates others leading to arrests and jail. In Juice, the lead character, in his big reveal, exposes his own culpability for the deaths. Through his exchange with the Bowman, he confronts his doubts. It is catharsis. It is the first time he has been able to tell the whole story. Reluctantly, if I read it correctly, the Bowman can no longer doubt him. Living the lie is over.

There’s another comparator that springs to mind, too. As I write this the BBC is airing its next series of Traitors – the celebrity version. This year featuring the likes of Hannah Fry, Michael Sheen, Richard E Grant, James Blunt and Joe Lycett (these are some of the ones I recognise). I have never watched Traitors because of the concept; namely deceit. I trust in the analysis by Rupert Read on the mechanics, but instead of it being a show for problem solving by collaboration, it is one that deliberately pits people against one another – in some cases, siblings and professional collaborators. Trust no one. They are out to kill you (or at least oust you from the show). That is how civilisation ends.

Here is the Guardian’s review by Rachel Seiffert of October 2024.

Picture, Tim Winton https://www.greenbelt.org.uk/artists/tim-winton/