2023/038: The Fall of Koli — M R Carey

Sword of Albion was quite the fashion on your little island. They promised to bring back everything people used to have in the good old days – clean streets, smiling children, jobs for life, meals that contained actual food, public hangings – and to protect what was left of Great Britain against what was left of the rest of the world. [p. 124]

In which the origins of Koli's future England -- with its small illiterate population, its oddly-named folk villains, its ferocious forests and the mysterious 'Sword of Albion' signal that Koli and his friends have been following -- are revealed, as is the agenda of the person who set the whole story in motion. There's more here, too, about stories and who tells them; about the making of new myths; about love between very different people; about how to improve the gene pool, and how to build your own dictator. There are also some truly horrific scenes, and one (at least one) that made me cry.

Much of the history that Koli learns is unpleasantly relevant to our own society. (“It’s called fascism... It’s like ra-ra skirts and flared trousers. People get all hot for it and make themselves look ridiculous, then when the fad blows over they pretend they were never that into it.” [p. 148]) But this is very definitely the future: a future blighted by climate change, genetic engineering and the aftermath of war, but also featuring technology well beyond our own, from the 'parents' of the boy Stanley to the battle-engine Challenger and his companion Elaine, to the intelligence which led Koli to the Sword of Albion and its hidden treasures.

There's a lot more from Spinner in this novel, and more of Monono too: yet Koli's voice is the one that will stay with me, because he is presented as a genuinely good and kind person. And his closing revelation made me want to reread the whole trilogy: but perhaps not quite yet, when the world outside the book seems so ominous, and a sentence like 'The time of people was over and the time of the endless forests was come' feels like hope.

Fulfils the ‘final book in a series’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge.