News From
1 primary work • 3 total works
Book 1
When Gavin Meckler's light aircraft encounters a mysterious cloud and crashes to earth, he discovers that the eerily quiet landscape in which he has landed is 200 years older than the one from which he took off. In this gentle, peaceful, sustainable new world, it is possible to travel from one side of the globe to the other in a matter of minutes without burning fuel, and everyone is a gardener because that's how they can be sure to eat.
Inspired by William Morris's utopian novel News from Nowhere, Robert Llewellyn shows us a future where we don't burn anything to make anything else and which isn't hovering on the brink of disaster; where aliens haven't invaded, meteors haven’t hit and zombies haven’t taken over. In short, a world where humanity eventually gets it right.
All the technology described in the novel has seen the light of day in reality. Llewellyn's future isn't perfect and may not be very likely, but it is entirely possible.
In this eagerly-awaited sequel to News From Gardenia, Gavin Meckler is trying to get back to the present, but something is amiss. He soon realises he has travelled sideways through time to another possible future, as unlike Gardenia as our own era.
Arriving in a teeming megacity, Gavin discovers a highly technologically developed society in a vast urban landscape constructed around a seemingly endless series of squares dense with lush vegetation and trees.
Much of what Gavin sees is recognisable. But there is one important difference. Here, women make up the majority of the global population and run the majority of institutions, including the vast and mysterious Institute of Mental Health where Gavin is required to live...
Gavin Meckler has slipped sideways in time again to a far more treacherous future than he has ever faced before.
Ever since Gavin left the world of 2011 and landed 200 years in the future, he has navigated the garden lands of Gardenia, escaped a world run by women in the Squares, and now finds himself in a floating city in the Clouds.
In this possible alternative future, the planet is ravaged by a brutal climate – crippling storms, sweeping winds and an unforgiving sun. Earth's inhabitants have had to adapt, creating a highly sophisticated society where the human race has two options: to live on the earth's scarred surface in enormous culverts, reinforced to withstand the ravages of the weather… or to float above it all.
It is a classless society where everyone must experience life both on the earth and in the clouds… and where they claim to know how and why Gavin has travelled 200 years beyond his own time.
Will Gavin finally understand the truth behind his journey? Can he find his way back to the life he left behind in 2011?
Is there even a world to go back to?...