We believe that works of fiction can provide a unique insight into the unprecedented anthropogenic changes and the resulting challenges that we all, as humans, face in the next decades. They represent a powerful tool in increasing awareness and prompting much needed societal change, because fiction has the power to touch our emotions and appeal to our hearts as well as to our brains.
It’s June 16, 2029, and California is ravaged by fires, droughts, floods, political paralysis, and civil unrest. Two anti-capital punishment activists, Rex Nightly and Urban McChen, have kidnapped the Governor of California in order to gently torture him into issuing a stay of execution for the (alleged) killer and cannibal, Billy the Goat. But the Governor accidentally dies, and his body has to be hidden in the closet of Rex’s luxury penthouse.
Meanwhile, Rex’s wife, California Lieutenant Governor Sofina Nightly, hatches an ambitious plan to reestablish order and save the state. Smart, powerful, and blissfully unaware that the former governor lies dead in her closet, Sofina agrees to meet the Attorney General, Bassia Augustine, in her penthouse that same day.
But not before Billy the Goat, jailhouse meditator and reformed vegetarian, escapes just minutes before his imminent demise… This gentle soul is looking for love, inebriation, and clemency, but knows he has only a few short hours before the police recapture him.
Set against a backdrop of climatic catastrophe and technological evolution, replete with zombie-obsessed retail clerks, itinerant surfers, and sex animates, Hear Us Fade is an entertaining, moving and thought-provoking black comedy that presents a haunting view of the near future.
The Last Island by David Hogan
A Boston fireman, in an attempt to flee personal and professional tragedy, accepts a job as a bartender on a Greek fishing island. He soon discovers that, despite its apparent tranquility, the island is divided between two irreconcilable sides: those who want to maintain its status as a marine preserve and those who want to do away with the preserve and embrace tourism. Seeking redemption from his own troubled past, he does his best to avoid entanglements of any sort, political or personal. His intentions are eclipsed, however, when he meets Kerryn, an animal rights activist, who believes dolphins possess consciousness, intelligence and souls.
“Hogan’s adept storytelling makes us ponder our spiritual essence.” —The Greek Star
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The Starved Lover Sings by Colin O’Sullivan
How much can one land take? How much can one man take? What if the rains kept coming? What if the huge waves kept crashing in? What if the plates kept shifting and volcanoes kept up their choking spew? What if neighbouring nations became more antagonistic and the rest of the world began to forget you?
It’s the not-too-distant-future and a certain Asian country is in physical and moral tatters. What was once a polite society has become fouled and corrupted. Part-time referee and full-time PE teacher, Tombo, stands in the middle of all this, trying to find fairness and balance in his own life, as things continue to crumble around him.
“Colin O’Sullivan’s writing is an antic, mordant and perverse plunge into strange and unnerving worlds.” —Colin Barrett
Betimes Books 
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