[ephemeral]

The Sea and Summer by George Turner (June 1987)
Requirements: ePUB Reader | 570 Kb
Overview: Francis Conway is Swill - one of the millions in the year 2041 who must subsist on the inadequate charities of the state. Life, already difficult, is rapidly becoming impossible for Francis and others like him, as government corruption, official blindness, and nature have conspired to turn Swill homes into watery tombs. And now the young boy must find a way to escape the approaching tide of disaster.

The Sea and Summer, published in the US as Drowning Towers, is George Turner's masterful exploration of the effects of climate change in the not-too-distant future.
Genre: Fiction, Speculative Fiction

* Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best novel, 1988
* Nebula Awards Best Novel (nominee)
* John W Campbell Memorial Award Best Novel (nominee)

"Under its original title, The Sea and Summer (Drowning Towers in the USA), this book recently received the Arthur C. Clarke Award as the best SF novel published in England in 1987. Australian writer Turner envisions a 21st-century nightmare that is the result not of war but of economic and climatic forces already underway. Massive unemployment has combined with the greenhouse effect (rising global temperatures and the sea level) to produce a society in which nine-tenths of the population lives in high-rise ghettos, jobless and demoralized. The social fall of the Conway family and their sons' desperate fight back up the ladder through scholarships and government service expose the viscera of the system. Although his story contains some romantic notions about poverty, and characters such as tower boss Billy Kovacs, a knight in tarnished armor, Turner also asks hard questions and is particularly skillful in his examination of a major Thomas Disch theme: the problems and responsibilities of intelligence in such a milieu. A fine, thoughtful novel." ~Publishers Weekly

"Australian veteran writer-critic Turner's second outing here: a patient, thoughtful exploration of the global disaster scenario. In the next century, the greenhouse effect has caused the polar ice-caps to melt, with rising sea levels and altered climates; this, along with vast overpopulation and an economic collapse, has divided society into the few (and dwindling) Sweet--the rich employed--and the Swill, the despised, permanently unemployed, desperate underclass. The Swill are crammed into housing projects, ghastly concrete towers holding perhaps 70,000 inhabitants three and four to a room. (The center of Australia has been occupied by displaced Asians, who have polluted what remains of the coastal fringes.) The Towers are run by gangster bosses--most of whom, however, have the welfare of their charges at heart. So when Sweet Dad Conway loses his job and suicides, his family--wife Alison, eldest son Teddy, younger son Francis--find themselves plunged into the horrors of the Fringes... not quite the Towers. Local Tower boss Billy Kovacs befriends them, becoming Alison's lover, finding Francis a job with a powerful Sweet--Teddy is an Extra, destined for further education (not what he expects--he learns the realities of Swill life). The drama that unfolds is a powerful one: Alison comes to accept her lot and unreservedly admires the tenderhearted, tough-minded Billy; Francis, an out-and-out creep, tries to scheme his way into a position of security; Teddy joins Political Intelligence and, cooperating with the loved/hated Billy, exposes a horrid government plot to sterilize the Swill. Slow-moving, perhaps, but evocative, often mesmerizing work: a frightening and persuasive glimpse of an all-too-possible future." ~Kirkus

"A seminal work of speculative fiction, The Sea and Summer speculates on what might come and sees that future with clarity. Its story alarms readers while simultaneously opening their eyes. Read this book." ~ephemeral

Download Instructions:
Drop APK

Mirror:
Hulkload