MARK J. SUDDABY – Born in England, in the year of Apollo 13 and Luna 17, Mark grew up sitting in front of the telly, in paisley pyjamas, staring wide-eyed as Doctor Who (Tom Baker), Space 1999, and Blake’s 7 romped across wobbly sets in garish outfits and big hair. Mark grew up in a large family which conversely meant playing alone, constrained only by a boundless imagination. At sixteen, realising that he was unlikely to become an actual space hero, Mark joined the Army. After a career bookended by Sandhurst and War College – gaining a Masters in Defence and Strategic Studies along the way – Mark left the military after 25 years, having reached the dizzying heights of the sixth floor of the Ministry of Defence, where he worked as a staff officer, preparing papers for senior officers and wishing he was anywhere else in the universe. Mark now lives in the West Country where he is endlessly fascinated by technological advances, philosophical questions, geopolitics, the universe, and wondering what it would be like, if…
They said the wanton, carefree use of hydrocarbons would boil the world like an egg, and they called it: climate change – the 6th extinction. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter: the Earth overcomes. You see, it was never about the weather, but what stops happening because of the weather, like crops and civilisations. Then they said a shifting climate wouldn’t have much of an effect: one, or two degrees… maybe. That the oceanic thermals would be fine. Probably. But they always say that.
Jack is a British soldier fighting in the last oil war. Areena, a climatologist with access to a decades-old Dim Beacon predicting a rapid climate event. She only realises how high the stakes really are as tanks grind into Parliament Square.
Joshua works in closed-loop biome research and mixes with all the right people – as if it were being orchestrated. They call him Saviour, but he’s not so sure. At least he has Art, a friend from Eden. Guy can smell the opportunities bubbling up out of a crumbling system. Mù looks on as Sergei acts. Roman gets pulled in and Dean still thinks nothing can surprise him. While Alice is content to watch, and wait.
They said it all started with a shifting climate. That without the greenhouse effect, humanity could have just stumbled blindly on. Fat, dumb, happy. Sure, they blamed the weather, but the weather doesn’t have a nuclear release button. And war is coming. The acrid taste of it hangs in the air like the scorched ozone of an impending storm.
Kiera gets lucky, but it doesn’t last. Nothing does anymore, especially with Deuteronomist cultists on the prowl. Mù waits for her chance in the Pacific, while Roman gambles everything on Transcaucasia, and Barbara watches in mounting horror from Port Charlotte. At the end, Guy does what he can, but it isn’t much.
Ever since the Great and Necessary Correction, Omicron’Qu has been expecting them, just as the Deuteronomists foretold. Jæren, a man of conscience, sees what others cannot. Furæ has no such qualms. Måna is the surprise, but then it’s hard to truly know a person. Inevitably, fractures appear, sides are taken and what remains of humanity reverts to what it does best. So Jæren, like Saint Joshua before him, must resolve a dilemma as irreconcilable as ever it was to the long dead denizens of old Britain, forcing Alice to act.
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