Just a Book Plug

Not really much of a post, just wanted to recommend a good book.

I'm about 20 pages from finishing it and it has been quite an experience.

It's called A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright (a novel). It is part hommage to H.G. Wells (he also makes a brief appearance in the book) and part fictional rendition of current thought on where our species is going and what could happen even only a short time in the future. Wright has also written other non-fiction books about the rise and fall of civilizations and the history of the colonization of the Americas (I've also read his A Short History of Progress, also very good, highly readable). This one is basically about the end of our current civilization and its aftermath. Kind of depressing I suppose, though not sure that it will end that way (I can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel however). It isn't as dark as say "1984" but just as shocking (in some ways because it seems more plausible and less metaphoric). A reminder why the presence and experience of works of fiction and the imagination are important and necessary to contextualise the works of non-fiction and the bare facts.