Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "climate-change"

Blue Gold
David Barker
Paperback: 360 pages
Publisher: Urbane Publications (June 1, 2017)
ISBN-10: 1911331655
ISBN-13: 978-1911331650
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Gold-Davi...


Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley Britton

Blue Gold is one of those fast-paced thrillers that demand focused reader attention. That’s because there are so many moving parts including changing global settings and Barker introducing a wide cast of important characters.

Set in the not-so-distant future, as they say, this addition to the “cli-fi” (climate fiction) genre revolves around two major protagonists, British agents Sim Atkins and his partner, Freda Brightwell. Atkins is a relative rookie whom the experienced Brightwell doesn’t accept with much enthusiasm. She’s distinguished by an ornate walking stick which doesn’t discourage Sim from an ongoing study of his “boss’s” legs. Sim is doubtful this pair can accomplish what is asked of them; Freda believes just a few brave souls can do what inactive masses won’t, even preventing World War III.

Their investigations begin by looking into the projects of very sophisticated worldwide terrorists and rogue governments who destroy satellites over Iceland, blow up airships, and infiltrate the most sensitive of governmental military computers all over the world. In fact, side stories and parallel plot lines occur in England, America, Ethiopia, Egypt, Israel, India, Pakistan, Japan, Canada, and China, among other locations. All the events and back-stories in these places aren’t presented in a linear flow but do establish just how turbulent the world order has become.

Easily speculative fiction if not overtly sci fi, Blue Gold occurs in a world with acute water shortages due to global climate changes. Most of the international conflicts are responses to the growing crisis. There are also riots and terrorism based on economic inequality, especially the workers of the world unhappy about corporations not paying their fair share of taxes. The rich are leaving behind their land based citizenships to live on the sea where they owe no taxes to anyone.

Futuristic elements include a reliance on AI (artificial intelligence), hyper-sonic surveillance drones, and a moon base mining for minerals. Through it all, the author says the point of the book is to expand awareness of what might happen to our planet’s water supply if we don’t address the growing problems of global warming. In addition, the author says he is using Blue Gold to help raise awareness for the charity, WaterAid, one of the organizations he describes in one of his lengthy appendices.

I highly recommend Blue Gold to pretty much every reader who likes intelligent fiction. It can be classified, if you need labels to determine your reading list, as an espionage thriller, speculative fiction, science fiction, a mystery, sometimes a political thriller, certainly “cli-fi.” Happily, while the book has a polemic point to make, Barker doesn’t preach to us and doesn’t hit us over the head with his themes. This is an entertaining, action-packed, vividly descriptive tale with memorable characters and, sadly, a more than plausible future for us to worry about. Speaking of the future, while I wasn’t crazy about the final scene on the last page of the main text, I was delighted to see Blue Gold is the first volume of a new trilogy. In the teaser chapter for book 2, I see why Blue Gold ended the way it did. So I have two more books to look forward to.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com at:
http://dpli.ir/D18hmZ

Bitten
Alan Moore
Paperback: 440 pages
Publisher: Independently published (February 7, 2018)
ISBN-10: 1980200890
ISBN-13: 978-1980200895
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...


Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

Bitten is one of those novels that’s very difficult to try to pigeonhole. Yes, it’s dystopian in that it’s set in the future when the consequences of global warming are affecting the earth. But much of the story has absolutely nothing to do with any normal science fiction trope. True, many passages can be best classified as horror. Others are best defined as belonging to the thriller genre. In short, many of the plot lines take us to places and down roads no reader could predict. I think that’s a good thing.

One major character is ecologist Claudia Mattioli, one of the world’s most important experts on mosquitoes. That’s a key role to play as climate change has produced a horrifying increase in the size and potency of all species of mosquitoes. Bearing all manner of deadly and incapacitating diseases, they’re attacking humans and animals in swarms that are eating up flesh in major cities all over Italy. At first, Claudia’s job is to gather samples of the types of mosquitoes in various regions before she’s asked to come up with a plan to eradicate them. Problem: Claudia doesn’t think humans should declare war on mosquitoes but rather find a way to live with them.

Claudia’s much older lover is New York publisher and editor Scott Lee who wants to make a deal to produce high-quality art books of Italian painters. As author Moore spent twenty-five years as a publisher and considering many of the pleasures Lee enjoys in Bitten, it’s hard not to wonder if Lee’s experiences are a bit of wish-fulfillment for his creator. Whatever the case, Lee is on hand with Claudia threw a series of shocking adventures, including a human-set fire that destroys much of Venice. That’s before Lee is tempted to go over to the dark side by the alluring femme fatale, Francesca Maruichi.

A third important player is Lee’s friend, Lawrence Spencer, an Italian intelligence officer using the cover of being an art expert. He’s called on by the Mafia in Florence to certify whether or not a certain painting reputedly by Raphael is genuine or not. After all, the criminals are very familiar with the black market, arms smuggling, sales of plutonium to Iran, but not art reportedly stolen in World War II by the Russians. An ongoing mystery involves those who have the painting wanting to set up a silent auction without anyone actually seeing the merchandise before the stolen art is stolen again.

So what has all this intrigue in the art world have to do with climate change and the theme Moore tells us is the important purpose of his book, that of demonstrating how nature will have revenge on humanity in response to thousands of years of poor stewardship of the planet? Are mosquito swarms but the opening shots of Mother Nature giving humanity fair warning of what she can do?

I can’t answer that. I can say I was continually kept interested in the various plot twists and turns because of the engaging, well-sketched characters, the vividly described settings, and the surprises at the end of many of the passages. That sometimes-kinky wish fulfillment Scott, Claudia, and Francesca enjoy is a bonus for, at least, male readers until the kinkiness goes a bit over the edge. One genre Bitten doesn’t fit in is YA.

In addition, Moore adds verisimilitude with an obvious familiarity with colorful Italian cities, the process of authenticating Renaissance paintings, and gives his science credibility by occasionally referring us to the two non-fiction appendices at the end. Bitten is a book for readers who like the unexpected and who don’t need their stories defined by a particular genre. It’s a page-turner with Moore keeping reader interest with a fast pace and all the ingredients spelled out above.


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on March 1, 2018:
https://waa.ai/zp53

In the coming months, we're going to be touting the upcoming release of Return to Alpha in a brand-new print edition. it's the 6th stand-alone saga from the Beta-Earth Chronicles. The book is especially timely as it features our planet in a future time after climate change has afflicted our world as well as waves of weaponized pandemics.

It's a stand-alone tale as it introduces a new cast of characters not seen in the first five books of the series. How would we on Alpha-Earth react to the news that there are other earths in the multi-verse? Not as happily as you might thing.

The passage below sets the stage a bit. It's an interview with the aliens in a fictitious news article:


The Jamaica Daily Messenger
Special Edition, Monday, March 4, 2044
By Noel Fleming
Photograph and Video Gallery by Tara Clemens

Exclusive: First Interviews with First Aliens to Ever Land on Earth

Humankind has always wondered if we were alone in the universe. In all those planets in our galaxy and beyond, shouldn’t we expect to someday encounter other forms of life?
And what about other universes where perhaps other kinds of humanity might live on parallel earths?
Last Monday, revelers at the Doctor’s Cave Beach in Montego Bay were the first to see a strange, triangular spaceship with two bulbous pods attached to it drop from the skies. (Photo and videos attached.) It carried six beings claiming to be from not one, but two such parallel earths.
At first, witnesses thought they were seeing some sort of Hollywood stunt to promote a new movie. “Two of the creatures that came out of that ship,” Rose Leiter of Saratoga, FL, reported, “looked like Klingons or Wookies or something. Very believable make-up.”
Raoul Esperansa of Santa Clara, Cuba, had a similar reaction. “I think everyone thought we were watching some sort of staged show. Then the police came out and handcuffed the strangers and everyone began to worry. I think most of us were relieved when the bomb-bots scooped up the satchels on the beach. Perhaps we’d just seen some very inventive terrorists get arrested before they could do any damage.”
In fact, officers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force very quickly apprehended the six aliens after four of them made attempts to introduce themselves to the crowds on the beach. After determining the situation was more appropriately the jurisdiction of the Military Intelligence branch of the Jamaica Defense Force, the aliens were placed in their custody and taken to the JDF’s headquarters in Kingston.
Within hours, JDF investigators conceded the stranded spacecraft had extra-terrestrial origins. A spokesperson for the scientific branch of the agency, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Messenger, “There’s no way the materials used, the construction design, or the control boards in that thing came from anywhere on our planet. We have so much to explore and test to find out how this thing ticks. Assuming we have the authority to do what we need to.”
Not certain of the legal ramifications in this unprecedented situation, Barrister William Anderson was asked to interview and represent the apparent aliens if they so desired. After consulting with his clients and the supervising officers, Anderson pointed out that while ignorance of the law has never been a legal defense, visitors from other planets should not be expected to know the proper procedures of acquiring entry visas and passports. At his insistence, all charges against the six were dropped.
The aliens’ main request was to be able to speak to the press. So Anderson contacted the Messenger and arranged for the most historic conversation in Earth’s history.

Table-Talk with Aliens

So yesterday at around 10:30 a.m., Anderson, Photographer Tara Clemens, and this reporter were ushered into a dining hall at the JDF headquarters. There was no shortage of armed bots surrounding everyone. Because of an invisible quarantine-shield dividing the room, all our voices would be sent and heard through the imbedded microphones and speakers in the long laminated table in the center of the hall. We felt in no danger even though we were among the very first to meet Jamaica’s most unexpected guests.
At the table, six figures sat together, clearly waiting for our arrival. Like the beach witnesses, my eyes were first drawn to the identical pair that indeed reminded me of old movie creatures like Klingons or Wookies. As readers can see in the attached photos, the aliens, apparently named Hamed El and Hamed Le, looked nothing like their companions. Instead, their bulging foreheads, large protruding jaws, and gray skins illustrated by colorful natural blotches in stripes, streaks, and splashes very much looked like a Hollywood creation.
As we took our places across from the aliens, the youngest of the four normal appearing beings spoke up. “I see your interest in our pilots. Before you ask them anything, please know they don’t understand English. I act as their translator. Also know that, as many have asked before, they can’t tell you much about how our ship, the Marivurn, works. By deliberate design, the builders didn’t want the pilots to know things that might prove dangerous in Alphan scientific hands. On top of that, when we landed here, they erased and destroyed all the memory banks in the Marivurn operating systems. For the same reason.”
“And that reason is,” a yellow-eyed, dark-skinned beauty added, ”is that on both our home-worlds, Beta-Earth and Cerapin-Earth, reckless scientists tried to duplicate multi-verse jumps at times the deities didn’t permit. On both planets, terrible, horrible consequences resulted. Thousands died on both earths. So we brought nothing to tempt anyone here to try to do the same.”
Curious to learn how these visitors knew such perfect, crystal-clear English, I was astonished with what I heard. According to the dark-skin girl, four of them were from the same family, sharing the same father. And they claimed he was originally from our planet. He had taught them English, they said, as something of a private family code as no one else on their home worlds knew their father’s language.
Studying their faces, I could see a slight family resemblance. But as they claimed to have different mothers, they were all distinct in appearance.
To my far left sat a rather handsome, strongly built man who introduced himself as Malcolm Renbourn II. Twenty-four years old, the oldest of the group, he said his father was Dr. Malcolm Renbourn of Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Forty years to the day before their arrival in Jamaica, Renbourn said his father had been ripped from Alpha-Earth, transported to Beta-Earth, and began a life “that’s a rather long story.”
Next to him sat the yellow-eyed, chocolate-skinned Kalmeg Renbourn, clearly from a different mother. Twenty-three years old, the second oldest of the group, she said her mother had been bonded to the Renbourn tribe due to the will of Olos, the goddess of Beta-Earth. “My mother was the prophesized gift from my country, Balnakin, to Tribe Renbourn as part of the reconciliation between my people and the Renbourns. Again, another long story.”
Beside her sat the other female of the group, an attractive, demure sixteen-year-old girl who called herself Olrei Renbourn. “While I was born on Cerapin-Earth, my mother was from Beta. She was one of the five Betan wives who came with father to Cerapin twenty years ago when our tribe had a new mission, to make Cerapin-Earth aware of the multi-verse. As we keep saying, another long story.”
Finally, I was introduced to Malcolm Renbourn III, the one who had claimed to be the translator for the pilots. His skin also had the colorful markings of the big-jawed twins. “I am the one half-Cerapin of my family in this room. My mothers were a pair much like my Hamed friends here. On our planet, many humans are pairs who share, you probably didn’t know, their minds, thoughts, and physical sensations. Other Cerapins are like me, nams they call us. Nams are single-bodied humans once branded defectives and outcasts. Until father and Tribe Renbourn changed all that. Guess what? Yep, another long story.”
When I asked why this Renbourn family had so many mothers, I heard another astonishing answer.
“On Beta-Earth,” the one called Malcolm Renbourn II responded, “for as long as we have recorded history, we suffered from the ancient curse we called the Plague-With-No-Name. For millennia, that plague killed three out of four male babies their first year. So it shouldn’t be surprising our tribal structure was based on polygamous bondings of a husband and usually three or four wives. Come to think of it, I know of no other family with nine wives like father had.”
“There was a reason for that,” Kalmeg said. “Father’s main mission on Beta was not only to make our planet aware of the multi-verse and spread Alphan knowledge everywhere, but to create numerous Alpha-Beta bloodlines. For many years, doctors hoped our genetics might contain the cure for the plague. That didn’t happen until Malcolm II over here. His genetics are something unusual. But that too is a story for another day.”
Was this mission repeated on Cerapin-Earth?
“Not quite,” Malcolm III answered. “Our planet is not polygamous. As we have a serious over-population problem, that isn’t our practice. I know father wasn’t expecting to take on any more wives. My mothers, however, rather, ah, made it impossible for him to resist their, ah, charms. While I have quite a few brothers and sisters on Cerapin, Tribe Renbourn’s main mission, other than spreading knowledge of both Alpha and Beta, was the championing of nam rights like we mentioned before.”
And what is your mission here, I asked.
“To bring awareness of the multi-verse to Alpha-Earth, of course,” Olrei answered. “And awareness of the power of all the deities, Olos, Cerapin, and your god father called Jehovah or Allah or whatever name you prefer. We will have much, very much to share with you about the deities. I don’t know if anyone told you, but we brought with us rather extensive records in many formats with so many details of life on Beta and Cerapin-Earths. They’re on what we call skil-pads, but we don’t know how successful your people will be unscrambling the texts and pictures on our technology. We certainly hope you’ll be able to open them so you’ll have so much knowledge and information to share with Alphans everywhere.”
Are you planning on creating your own polygamous families?
The four Renbourns laughed. “No, while we are open to finding mates,” Olrei replied, “we have no directives to introduce any of our customs to Alpha-Earth. Nothing like that at all. But we’re going to be here for a while.
“Unless the deities do something different we don’t know about, no cross-versal window will open for another twenty years. That seems to be their pattern. We’re going nowhere. And before you ask, no one else is coming after us. No one can.”
“Other than sharing my home planet with you,” Kalmeg added, “I certainly don’t know of any other missions. Before we boarded the Marivurn, neither Malcolm II nor I had even ever met the Cerapin Renbourns. Every conversation we’ve had has been here, wherever here exactly is.”
What future plans do you have?
“You tell us,” Malcolm II shrugged. “Since we’ve been here, we’ve been in rather restrained protective custody. Our only real plans are to talk to any reporters that want to interview us. We hinted at many long stories to tell. Well, we’re willing to tell them. We’re eager to share all of them. On behalf of my family, let me invite you to return, Noel Fleming of the Messenger. We’ve got stories for you that would fill books. On two earths, they already have.”