America City by Chris Beckett review – dark vision of our future

The signposts have been around for decades, and the territory is increasingly well mapped. So while the past may be a foreign country, the future is an increasingly familiar one – in which we continue to be alarmingly ourselves.

In this vivid and disturbing climate-change novel, Chris Beckett, winner of the Arthur C Clarke award, compellingly illustrates the consequences of our species’ fatal hard-wiring. Though a knight’s move away from his acclaimed sci-fi trilogy Dark Eden, Mother of Eden and Daughter of Eden, his new work shares a preoccupation with the survival and evolution of societies in inhospitable worlds.

Related: Chris Beckett wins Arthur C Clarke award for Dark Eden

Beckett’s focus is less on the speculative question 'what if?' than the more provocative and poignant 'what when?'