One of the many new releases to debut at Safari Festival earlier this month, Joseph P Kelly’s Paywall was a book we also included in our list of Staff Picks for the event. PayWall “explores the impact of rising sea levels, the legacy of public and private infrastructure projects on local populations and the possibility of violent uprisings by groups feeling excluded from mainstream society” and is set in a science fiction version of the UK city of Hull.
We’re very pleased today to run a preview of PayWall (published by Landfill Editions) at BF below. You can order the book online here, follow Joseph P Kelly on Twitter here and find out more about his work online here.
A small city near the coast in the north of England finds itself in a global race for survival as ocean levels rise around it.
Ruthless self-interest has become a necessity in a world of finite resources and distressing international events. Local populations can justify their existence through collaboration with multinational business and a flexible response to global markets.
A groundbreaking public-private partnership produces designs for a huge wall to force back rising seas from the city’s edge. Construction of the wall heralds a new system of governance, ingeniously balanced between the success of the individual and the power of the consumer.
This innovative model of interaction between individuals and institutions presents opportunities and challenges for the inhabitants of the city.
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