The last one was an attempt at a romantic novel. It’s called The Kiap’s Wife and is doing quite well.

The latest one is an attempt at a dystopian novel. I’m not quite sure how it’s worked out. Time will tell.

The world is awash with dystopian novels at the moment, a sign of the uncertain and precarious times I guess, and it’s hard to tell what might appeal to readers.

There’s also a huge influence from dozens of dystopian movies to consider.

Most of the scenarios are the same, the threat to the future of humanity caused by, you guessed it, humans themselves.

Only the detail of the threats seems to vary. I’ve stuck to that general theme for safety’s sake. The blurb explains it all.

“Just imagine, the world in turmoil, not with war but something much more terrible.

"People, in their thousands, men, women and children, beggars and billionaires, fleeing to the sea, taking to boats of all sizes, out into the ocean, blindly, stupidly, not knowing where they are going, desperate to evade an all-consuming beast, washing up on lonely atolls and reefs, human jetsam and flotsam, littering the beaches with their trappings and staining the sand with their rotting carcasses.

"Following a series of rolling global disasters a ragged band of survivors gather on an isolated island somewhere between the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

"As their numbers grow and they learn more about their island their thoughts turn from basic survival to the possibilities of a future and how that might look.

"Will old ideas suffice or is a new paradigm required? Is this the beginning or the end? And in either case, is it worth the effort?”

I scared myself half to death researching and writing it. Hopefully it will scare a few readers too.

Edgar and Eve by Philip Fitzpatrick, Sivarai, 2024, 344 pages, available on Amazon Australia shortly. Paperback $16.65, eBook $1.53.

PS: My next novel, which I’ve begun writing, is a domestic comedy, à la John Updike but with a bit more ginger. It’s based in a little coastal town remarkably like my own.