“The Last Day” by Andrew Hunter Murray (2020)

“Two thirty a.m., and no signal yet.”

Look, I half made myself a promise a while ago to stop reading dystopian stories while the world still feels like one, but if I did I’d be wiping out many great books. I’ve definitely cut back though, and it was time to make an exception for Murray’s The Last Day.

The year is 2059, and thirty years ago the Earth stopped spinning. Now tidally locked to the sun, half of the planet exists in a permanent daylight, the other is frozen and pitch black. Eking out a...