After the Flood – a synopsis
[FUTURISTIC/FANTASY NOVEL WINNER 2010]
Shane Joseph

  It is the year 2046 and our known world has collapsed under the weight of a gigantic flood that occurred in 2012, brought about by ecological changes, natural and man-made. Out of this cataclysm emerged a scattering of city-states, polarized between free-market and socialist values. The Capitalists embrace a form of “winner take all,” lifestyle, while the Humanitarian’s practice the mantra, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

After the Flood takes place in the Humanitarian city-state of Tolemac, situated somewhere in what was once the northeastern part of North America. It is the story of the post-Flood generation trying to emerge from the tall shadows cast by their pioneering pre-Flood parents who re-built lives and created a fundamentalist society following the cataclysm. It tells of narrator David Arthurs, living in awe of his father and leader of Tolemac, Samson, and of David’s desire to follow in his father’s footsteps, yet dogged by inadequacy and inexperience; of neurotic, sexually troubled Leo Patimkin, desperately trying to earn the respect of his computer-scientist father Vladimir; of ambitious and amoral Ethan Williams, using the protection of his father, Defense Secretary Burgess, to promote Capitalist-style expansion plans for Tolemac. It is also a story of second chances; that no matter what is thrown one’s way, giving up is never an option. In the post-Flood Humanitarian world, “Mankind’s sin is washed away,” Samson preaches from the pulpit. Yet has it?

In this new world of converged media channels, morality laws, genetically modified food, twice-yearly harvests, smart cards and backward physical transport systems, the human ability to create havoc through the weakness of desire is still alive and well.

Add an ambitious plan for a controversial helicopter service, a local government election that goes out of control, the arrival in Tolemac of beautiful and earthy Delia Stone and tormented pilot Sean Gallagher, a drug smuggling operation penetrating the Humanitarian realm, a suspected murder by a member of the city’s Executive Committee, and the inhabitants of peaceful Tolemac are plunged into pre-Flood times once more. Samson ruminates, “Tolemac was a reversal of that medieval kingdom Camelot that went into ruin through man’s greed. But a thousand years later—we still haven’t learned!”

In a tragic climax, the post-Flood generation wrests control of its beloved state from slumping back into chaos, but is left with the sobering thought, once buried in the Old World Canadian anthem, “We stand on guard for thee!”—that constant vigilance is the price of freedom and peace!