A Thrilling Trip through Humanity’s Brilliance and Brutality
Predicting what distant descendants will think of us is as impossible as knowing what type of music our great-great-grandchildren will dance to. Activities that are now legal, from eating meat to air travel to the use of pornography, could soon go the same way as slavery in the arena of public opinion.
Alastair J. Dickie’s debut novella ‘Levelling’ is set in the distant future and involves resurrecting individuals and forcing them to be tried by the titular ‘levellers’ for their involvement or complicity in manmade climate change. Protagonist Addison is brought back to life using a process that can best be explained to someone in the early twenty-first century as ‘cloning’. Levelling is much more sophisticated. It is explained to Addison: “Cloning is for dilettantes, levelling is the closest to Godhood our species ever came”.
Having lived through the cataclysms caused by global warming, the levellers are eager for revenge on the beneficiaries of industrial civilization, people like those in the West of 2020 whose everyday actions pushed the planet to breaking point. Assigned to help raise others from the dead for trial and inevitable torture and execution, Addison quickly discovers that meeting the requirements of the levellers to avoid this fate is as impossible as refraining from all sins mentioned in the Christian Bible. You can read the full review here.
I am passionate about creative activities like songwriting and prose fiction, and the mechanics behind how a piece succeeds or fails. That is why I like to review other artists’ work. If you have an album, book, or other work you want reviewing, please don’t hesitate to hit me up on mcgeary at gmail dot com
Kevin McGeary 