The Last Day

An excellent take on a near future dystopia. Like all great dystopias this one stays close enough to reality that the loss of control and slip into totalitarianism feels scarily real. This one adds a nice sci-fi twist as the explanation for the country's acquiescence with this new reality - the world has stopped spinning and become in lock-step with the sun. This means that one side of the planet is permanently in sunshine and therefore becomes too hot to be habitable, and the other side is permanently in darkness, becoming to cold to be habitable. All that is left is a thin band of normally habitable ground in the twilight zones between light and dark. This is a clever construct and thought experiment. A reality such as this would definitely cause the chaos and threat of ‘other' that could lead to the type of dystopian state being proposed.

The central story is around a secret hidden by a dying former member of the government. What this secret is and who wants to reveal/suppress it becomes the main bulk of the story.

I really enjoyed this - the world building with its paranoia and totalitarian state was believable and all the more scary for it. The sense of isolationism and fear of foreigners that pervades the fight for resources seems sadly too real. With the main setting being the UK and the current Brexit isolationism being actively promoted it seems very apt for the times too. I got a very ‘Children of Men' type vibe from the story too.