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Poetic Spaces
The United Kingdom no longer exists. Europe as we know it does not exist. The United States has disintegrated. In their place is a vast empire, controlled by a resurgent Imperial China…
Set in the twenty-second century, Poetic Spaces follows a group of amateur historians living in a dystopian Britain, who use smuggled contraband to celebrate forbidden traditions and subvert the oppressive Imperial Government.
George is one such historian, building an influential narrative of the past and setting the foundations for a new national identity. All he wants is to see through the censorship and get to the ‘truth’.
But George’s work is dangerous, especially in the eyes of the authorities. A new wave of crackdowns, implemented by the young and assertive Governor Changpu, ends with the public execution of old friends while driving others into the service of the regime’s police force — the Internal Guard. As the walls close around him, he is forced to take refuge in a secluded village with an insular but authentic old way of life, where he forms an uneasy alliance with a resourceful smuggler, and where all his assumptions about himself and the world around him are shattered.
At its heart the book is about identity — the psychological power of a sense of rootedness and belonging to a particular place and time — and the disorientation that inevitably follows if that feeling is disrupted.
It also What is identity? In an increasingly multicultural society, against a background of high immigration and climate change, this is a question that almost all of us think about at least some of the time.
If you enjoy speculative fiction with a political edge, such as Michel Houellebecq’s Submission, or dystopian novels such as John Lanchester’s The Wall, you will like reading this book.
Buy Poetic Spaces today for a horrifying glimpse into a future that’s not as implausible as you might think.
Set in the twenty-second century, Poetic Spaces follows a group of amateur historians living in a dystopian Britain, who use smuggled contraband to celebrate forbidden traditions and subvert the oppressive Imperial Government.
George is one such historian, building an influential narrative of the past and setting the foundations for a new national identity. All he wants is to see through the censorship and get to the ‘truth’.
But George’s work is dangerous, especially in the eyes of the authorities. A new wave of crackdowns, implemented by the young and assertive Governor Changpu, ends with the public execution of old friends while driving others into the service of the regime’s police force — the Internal Guard. As the walls close around him, he is forced to take refuge in a secluded village with an insular but authentic old way of life, where he forms an uneasy alliance with a resourceful smuggler, and where all his assumptions about himself and the world around him are shattered.
At its heart the book is about identity — the psychological power of a sense of rootedness and belonging to a particular place and time — and the disorientation that inevitably follows if that feeling is disrupted.
It also What is identity? In an increasingly multicultural society, against a background of high immigration and climate change, this is a question that almost all of us think about at least some of the time.
If you enjoy speculative fiction with a political edge, such as Michel Houellebecq’s Submission, or dystopian novels such as John Lanchester’s The Wall, you will like reading this book.
Buy Poetic Spaces today for a horrifying glimpse into a future that’s not as implausible as you might think.
407 pages, Paperback
Published December 13, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 21, 2025
A Quietly Devastating Dystopia That Strikes Closer to Home Than You’d Expect
Poetic Spaces is one of those rare debut novels that feels fully formed — confident, conceptually rich, and quietly unsettling. Neil Wright imagines a chillingly plausible future in which Britain is no longer Britain. The cultural landmarks we take for granted — Remembrance Day, Bonfire Night, even the very idea of “Britishness” — have been buried under layers of censorship and imperial doctrine. What’s left is a fractured society where smuggled contraband and whispered stories become acts of resistance.
The book’s strength lies in its subtlety. There are no cartoonish villains or melodramatic rebel leaders. Instead, we follow George, an amateur historian whose quiet obsession with truth and tradition gradually morphs into a dangerous form of subversion. His journey — part historical detective work, part moral reckoning — invites the reader to examine their own assumptions about identity, belonging, and the importance of cultural continuity.
Wright’s world-building is exceptional: Britain under Chinese rule is both alien and familiar, an eerie hybrid that evokes the feeling of walking through your childhood home only to find that every detail has been slightly, disturbingly altered. It’s this uncanny realism that makes the novel so compelling — and so discomforting.
What elevates Poetic Spaces beyond a standard dystopian thriller is its philosophical core. It’s a novel that understands the psychological power of shared lore and inherited meaning. In doing so, it gently prods at uncomfortable truths — including the West’s growing tendency to deconstruct its own foundations with little care for what might be lost. In this sense, it echoes the warnings of thinkers like Douglas Murray: when cultural confidence erodes, something will inevitably take its place — and that something may not be benign.
That said, Poetic Spaces is never didactic. Wright’s prose is elegant, his characters nuanced, and his politics understated. This is speculative fiction at its best: a cautionary tale wrapped in a gripping narrative, one that lingers long after the final page. Thought-provoking, relevant, and uncomfortably close to the bone.
Poetic Spaces is one of those rare debut novels that feels fully formed — confident, conceptually rich, and quietly unsettling. Neil Wright imagines a chillingly plausible future in which Britain is no longer Britain. The cultural landmarks we take for granted — Remembrance Day, Bonfire Night, even the very idea of “Britishness” — have been buried under layers of censorship and imperial doctrine. What’s left is a fractured society where smuggled contraband and whispered stories become acts of resistance.
The book’s strength lies in its subtlety. There are no cartoonish villains or melodramatic rebel leaders. Instead, we follow George, an amateur historian whose quiet obsession with truth and tradition gradually morphs into a dangerous form of subversion. His journey — part historical detective work, part moral reckoning — invites the reader to examine their own assumptions about identity, belonging, and the importance of cultural continuity.
Wright’s world-building is exceptional: Britain under Chinese rule is both alien and familiar, an eerie hybrid that evokes the feeling of walking through your childhood home only to find that every detail has been slightly, disturbingly altered. It’s this uncanny realism that makes the novel so compelling — and so discomforting.
What elevates Poetic Spaces beyond a standard dystopian thriller is its philosophical core. It’s a novel that understands the psychological power of shared lore and inherited meaning. In doing so, it gently prods at uncomfortable truths — including the West’s growing tendency to deconstruct its own foundations with little care for what might be lost. In this sense, it echoes the warnings of thinkers like Douglas Murray: when cultural confidence erodes, something will inevitably take its place — and that something may not be benign.
That said, Poetic Spaces is never didactic. Wright’s prose is elegant, his characters nuanced, and his politics understated. This is speculative fiction at its best: a cautionary tale wrapped in a gripping narrative, one that lingers long after the final page. Thought-provoking, relevant, and uncomfortably close to the bone.
August 17, 2025
This book is strongly recommended for those who are beginning to question the course at which Britain, and the West at large, is on and has been on since the mid 20th century. It presents a brutally realistic depiction of a Britain eroded by centuries of mass immigration, a Britain without a core identity, and thus under the rule of an Imperial China. The author makes it subtly clear, throughout the book, that this is a fate that could have been avoided if the West hadn't gone down such a self-destructive and suicidal path, the very path at which we are going down today.
I am rating this book five stars partly because I resonate with it's core message, and partly because of how realistic the characters felt and how the author didn't hesitate to show how malformed and unrecognizable this future Britain is because of our present foolish, reckless, and idealistic world view and moral framework.
If you want a book that doesn't pull punches and where the author tries his best to utilize show not tell to express his grievances at our present, perilous societal course (with the exception of excerpts at the beginning of each chapter from a book central to the story's plot, which I find welcome and unique) then Poetic Spaces is for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z--C...
- Jukelbo489, Ethnonational Traditionalist, founder of the Mayflower Club
I am rating this book five stars partly because I resonate with it's core message, and partly because of how realistic the characters felt and how the author didn't hesitate to show how malformed and unrecognizable this future Britain is because of our present foolish, reckless, and idealistic world view and moral framework.
If you want a book that doesn't pull punches and where the author tries his best to utilize show not tell to express his grievances at our present, perilous societal course (with the exception of excerpts at the beginning of each chapter from a book central to the story's plot, which I find welcome and unique) then Poetic Spaces is for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z--C...
- Jukelbo489, Ethnonational Traditionalist, founder of the Mayflower Club
June 5, 2025
A really cool idea for a story, executed very well with some quality writing along the way. Important for me as someone that's overly fussy with physical books, but it's also a good quality product, too. Feels good, looks good.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews