News from Somewhen: Visions of a fragile utopia (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781913460983)

A young woman called Robyn Ghorra, living life to the full in the Gloucestershire town of Stroud, is subjected to a life-changing accident. While lost to this world in a coma, she finds herself transported as if by magic to a future era. It is not a chance transfer. Rather part of a planned experiment that only slowly becomes clear to her. The place she finds herself in is strangely familiar, her own home territory, but transformed. She is progressively able to explore what feels like a utopian society. Her background as an urban designer enables her to grasp the changed nature of town and country, and how crises of climate, biodiversity, energy, technology, unhealthy environments and social inequality have been tackled and transformed. However, there is a dark undertow beneath this glittering surface. Catastrophic events mid-century have triggered economic and social dislocation, altering political dynamics, and still climate and oceanic change, the result of our own malign choices in this present day, threaten the long-term future.

At its heart, this is the story of a cautious young woman forced out of her comfortable assumptions and thrown into a world of astonishing marvels and quiet horrors. Through extraordinary encounters and hard-won insights, she grows in courage and purpose, determined to return and help change her own time.

More broadly, the novel offers a grounded, scientifically informed future history of the twenty-first century-local in focus, global in implication. It acknowledges the crises we already see on the horizon, yet refuses both easy dystopia and idealised utopia. Above all, it insists that a better future remains possible.