Post by Calenture on Feb 28, 2009 5:18:21 GMT
Earthworks by Brian Aldiss
(Four Square 1965-67; NEL 1972) by Brian Aldiss.
It is the 21st century and an ecological nightmare has overtaken the Earth. The soil is impoverished. Sand is imported from Africa for Britains's soil manufacturing plants--Britain's own beaches have been eaten away long ago. Trees are torn down so that birds which might feed on the crops have nowhere to nest; steel mesh windbreaks are erected in their stead to prevent the wind eroding the soil. Villages and towns are deserted, their populations moved to the vast cities which stand on legs above the toxic fumes of the insecticides. Criminals, whatever their crime, are summarily dispatched to the 'farms', which are in fact no more nor less than labour camps. Haunting the crumbling, deserted
villages are the Travellers, the last free men.
Knowle Noland is a criminal whose betrayal of his companions has led to his being rewarded by being released from a farm and placed upon one of the sand-carrying nuclear freighters. Noland is visited by halucinations, plagued by guilt, and starved of emotions. When the dead man comes drifting across the sea, strapped to an anti-grav pack, bearing letters from a woman, Noland fixes emotionally on the author of the letters. The wreck of the Trieste Star leads to Noland stumbling upon a fantastic new city, a meeting place of nations; and upon a plot to assassinate the one man who might be able to return peace to the nations.
This is early Aldiss and takes a few chapters to gain pace. The vision of the future presented here is unremitting in its nightmare quality. England has probably never been depicted as so ugly, so totally lacking in any redeeming feature. Noland is far from the traditional heroic stereotype. But in these things lie the story's strengths. The farms are reminders of Belsen and Auschwitz, and if Noland is not a hero we still must keep reading to see if he can raise himself to manhood and one final act of defiance.
Cover by Bruce Pennington