Ever wondered what our great-great-grandchildren will think of us as they survey the wreckage? Will they realize that their broken inheritance was no accident, but a scheduled apocalypse we had seen coming a long way off, in great scientific detail and full Dolby Technicolor Sensurround?
As if our generation had taken some perverse pleasure wallowing in scary-scary, frowning with concern at the litany of extinct species and vanishing forests, wringing our hands in helpless sympathy as faraway, starving children stared out of our TV sets accusingly Gasping at last in horrified excitement when the second plane hit the second tower as soon as the focus was adjusted.
Like fingering a decaying tooth, enjoying the painful tingle, knowing all too well that the longer we wait and do nothing, other than devise complex methods of denial, the closer we get to that apocalyptic bogeyman all you prime-time warriors have been expecting.
Sound familiar? Then this book is for you.
Says the author, 41st-century starship singer BB Boris: Where I come from, telecommunications are telepathy, people do not build their houses but grow them, and the pursuit of power is no more than a distasteful game fit only for unruly children. Alas, a doomed mission to your infernal era has trapped me here among you primitive hypocrites.
Although BB pulls no punches when describing our suicidal century, what he has to say is surprisingly optimistic, and after reading his unique memoirs you will find yourself strangely uplifted, rediscovering a sense of faith and hope you thought was lost forever.
Indeed, this tale is not about doom and gloom. It is about faith. Believe it or not, two thousand years from now we will have come a long, long way. Welcome to the Imperial Federation of Jupiter, a space-faring utopia where problems still exist, for this is not Neverland, but where we have at least succeeded in overcoming the depressingly childish conundrums of our tragic infancy.
How was this possible?
After playing around in the technology sandbox for a century or so, our species suddenly had to learn some very hard lessons in the ensuing trauma. As a result, and despite all the odds stacked against us, we were able to rediscover the wisdom of our early ancestors. Thus the multiple wonders present in the Federation are a blend of quantum physics, spiritual energy and shamanic magic.
One of your descendants is living there. He has a job as a starship vocalist, a highly trained specialist responsible for the safety of passengers. He is living a life of contentment with his mate, but their loving bliss is suddenly shattered by affairs of state. Eventually an exceptional spate of circumstances results in his leaving the forty-first century and he ends up trapped in our infernal age.
But this is not really about the future. Although much of the action takes place in 2021 and in 4077, this is a highly contemporary novel. It is in a way the story of a hapless rock singer at odds with the nauseating values permeating the last days of our species on its once-beautiful cradle planet.
As he tries hard to make the best of his exile, racked by loneliness, plagued by half memories of his utopian home in the future, he is nevertheless driven by his first-hand awareness that Humankind has everything to look forward to, if only after the looming, terrible catharsis he knows is coming.
Like a spaced-out Forrest Gump, this peculiar intelligence gives him a unique perspective on the events of the last three decades. Like Kane, the Shaolin priest of the Kung-Fu series, his purity of spirit provides him with a disarming, almost magical advantage when confronted with the simian brutes that dominate our troubled era.
Even as his memories fade with time, to the point where he begins to doubt they ever happened, the protagonist
