Robert Harris, The Second Sleep.

                                                         

- Robert Harris, a master of quality historical fiction, has built his latest novel on an intriguing premise: the inversion of time periods. History, after the catastrophic end of civilisation in 2025, began again.

- The church declared that ‘God had punished the ancients for their elevation of science above all else’. 'Scientism’ was now a heresy. It caused a cyber network collapse, a climate crisis, a nuclear war, and a global food shortage. It was a massive armageddon. No money, no communication, no food. Starvation, disease and massacre took most people, and the rest would have drowned in the rising waters. 

- This 'Apocalypse' happened in 2025, known from the biblical Book of Revelation as the year of the the beast, 666. History had virtually ended and the remnant Church authorities, once small communities began to establish themselves again, declared a new calendar. This novel is set in the year '1468', which, although never spelt out, equates to 2827 under our current calendar.

- This post-science, post-rational-enquiry, post-enlightenment society is a replication of the what we know as the dark Middle Ages - here officially named as the ‘Age of the Risen Christ’. The monarchy, the church, the state, are absolute authorities and demand subservience. As we look upon the ruins of that era now, these citizens are looking on the ruins of the 21st century. (And much of it is plastic).

- The population of England has shrunk from 60 million to 6 million. And critically, of course, here is no such thing as as the foundational power of electricity. 

- It has the bleakness, coldness and darkness of a Hannah Kent novel. 

- But of course human beings, being the age-old package of sinfulness, pride and ambition, as well as compassion, love and loyalty, are not much different whatever the period or circumstances. They feel the same emotions. Harris' skill, on show in all his historical novels, is to infuse his narratives with the exquisite drama of human interaction. He brings history very much alive.

- Prophets are universally ignored. Truth is buried as a heresy. Knowledge and enlightenment are more often than not entombed.