Deadly secrets and dystopian fears

The title of this Newark Book Festival talk – Deadly Secrets and Dystopian Fears – could hardly have been more apt. 

In the intimate surrounds of the town’s National Civil War Centre, speculative thriller author Eve Smith took centre stage, joining crime writer Eva Björg Ægisdóttir for a compelling discussion hosted by Dr Tim Rideout. 

But from my perspective it was Smith’s chilling new novel The Cure that dominated the hour, offering a potent blend of science, ethics and imagined futures that now feel all too plausible.

As a writer immersed in my own climate-themed speculative fiction, I found Smith’s candour and insight both reassuring and unsettling. 

Here is someone working at the very edge of what fiction can do – holding up a mirror to the world as it is now, while asking what it might look like just one bad decision (or breakthrough) down the road.

A cure worse than the disease?
Smith’s latest novel (published this spring by Orenda Books) pivots on a discovery no less extraordinary than the mythical fountain of youth. 

Her protagonist, Ruth, stumbles upon a cure for ageing while researching a disease that killed her daughter. It's an accidental find – science as side effect – but one that is quickly hijacked by corporate ambition. 

The resulting gene therapy promises eternal youth but at catastrophic cost. A future where humanity can no longer die naturally demands grim sacrifices to keep the system functioning.

It’s this kind of premise – eerily speculative but firmly rooted in real-world science – that defines Smith’s work. Her books, from The Waiting Rooms to One and now The Cure, begin with a simple, terrifying “what if?” In this case: what if the cure for ageing arrived before we were ready to manage it?

Listening to Smith unpack the real-world science was a revelation. She spoke of biotech companies already offering unregulated gene therapies, of a Silicon Valley outfit called Ambrosia that sold young people’s plasma to ageing elites – what she chillingly dubbed “modern-day vampire science.” And yes, it actually happened. 

The longevity industry is no longer niche futurism, it’s a multi-billion-dollar beast and her thoughts mirrored my own on observation a visit to Milan in 2024 and recorded in “A writer’s imaginative eye”.

For speculative fiction writers, who dwell in the speculative margins of science, this is fertile territory. But it's also fraught with moral complexity. 

Smith’s approach stands out because she doesn’t just pose ethical dilemmas – she drills deep into their human consequences. Her dystopias aren’t all towering glass and techno-doom, they’re rooted in the mess and pain of family, grief, ambition and love.

Fiction as thought experiment
As Smith told the audience, writing is her form of therapy. She researches obsessively – not just to arm herself with facts but to interrogate their implications. 

“If only,” she noted, “our political systems could keep pace with our science.” 

It’s a familiar refrain for any of us exploring the gap between innovation and governance – particularly in a time when climate change, AI and bioengineering are all surging ahead with few brakes in sight.

One of the most powerful ideas from The Cure is the notion of transcendence – a euphemism for euthanasia at the age of 120, required to prevent societal collapse under the weight of the undying. 

It's an Orwellian twist on assisted dying, laced with dark satire. Smith described the “transcendence ceremony” as akin to a wedding with speeches, closure and celebration before the final curtain. It’s dystopian, yes, but presented with a sardonic grin that lands it with an emotional punch.

This blend of science and social commentary felt strikingly familiar as I thought about my own forthcoming novel Flood Waters Down. 

While Smith's lens is biotechnology, mine is climate collapse, but we’re walking similar paths – fictionalising truths we’re already too close to. The dystopia doesn’t feel like a warning so much as a reflection of what’s already beginning to manifest.

Building a believable tomorrow
What sets Smith apart is her approach to world-building. She maps out the political, environmental and social landscape of her imagined futures in early detail before shaping the story itself. 

It’s a technique I’ve increasingly adopted in my own work of fiction which I like to call a “history of the future”. World-building isn't just about dressing the set it's about structuring the story’s moral and logistical scaffolding.

In The Cure, this manifests in a bifurcated future. One legal, state-controlled rejuvenation programme, the other an elite, unregulated underground version for the wealthy and powerful. 

The inequities are stark. Living space is scarce. Green spaces have all but vanished. Young people face mounting costs and diminished opportunity, unless they sign up to the government’s strict longevity contract. 

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. We’re already watching inter-generational tensions play out, already dealing with housing crises and resource limits. What Smith has done is project them forward.

There’s also a recurring motif in her books of mother-daughter dynamics – a personal anchor in the swirl of global-scale issues. 

“I always come back to family,” she said. “That’s where you feel the impact of everything.” 

In The Cure, Ruth’s grief and guilt are the emotional lynchpins of the plot. For Smith, and I suspect for many of us writing in the speculative space, the personal and political are almost indivisible.

Genre bending for real impact
Smith comfortably straddles speculative fiction and thriller territory – a tricky balance that requires both pace and philosophical depth. Her plots move fast but not at the expense of nuance. 

She cited The Handmaid’s Tale – still painfully relevant decades after publication – as a personal touchstone. That resonance is what she’s aiming for and, arguably, achieving. As an audience member noted, her books seem destined to be re-read in years to come with a dawning sense of “Oh, that’s now.”

What I appreciated most from the session was Smith’s humility about her own genre. Speculative fiction is often viewed as second-tier literature – too bleak, too geeky, too niche. 

But as both she and Dr Rideout pointed out, the genre’s roots go deep. HG Wells, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood – and I would add JG Ballard. These writers didn’t just predict the future they shaped how we think about the present. That’s the tradition new writers are stepping into.

Cure for complacency
Towards the end of the talk, Smith revealed she’s not quite done with genetics. Her next novel will explore the idea of parents engineered from scratch – designer biology meets parental trauma. 

She laughed, noting she just can’t seem to escape DNA. But perhaps that’s the point. We’re already entering a world where our biology, once fixed, is becoming malleable. The big question, however, isn’t just what’s possible. It’s who controls it and at what cost?

As someone preparing to release a speculative novel of my own, I left the session not just inspired but sharpened. Smith reminded me that dystopia isn’t all about doom. It’s about consequence. It’s about asking the hardest questions in a format people will engage with. 

And maybe, just maybe, it’s about getting readers to imagine something better by first showing them what might go wrong.

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Photo caption: Tim Rideout with authors Eve Smith-Eva (centre) and Bjorg Aegisdottir at Newark Book Festival, July 2025. 

Flood Waters Down is on the road to publication - further details contact Clive Simpson

Heat, wealth and denial

 

The Earth is on fire – literally and politically. From southern Europe to the American West, from South Asia to the UK, we are witnessing heatwaves, floods and systemic breakdowns. These are not outliers but the new normal.

And still, somehow, we go on pretending.

The Guardian's recent opinion headline – “Why do we pretend heatwaves are fun and ignore the brutal, burning reality?” – poses exactly the right question. Inflatable paddling pools, rooftop cocktails and weather presenters chirping about “glorious sunshine” are still our cultural defaults, even as climate systems tip dangerously toward the edge.

This dissonance is a form of climate denial. Not the outright rejection of science but a quieter more pervasive refusal to let the facts fully alter how we live, lead or legislate.

Adaptation limits

This week (23 June 2025), the UK’s Climate Change Committee released its latest review, warning that Britain remains dangerously unprepared for what lies ahead. "We are not resilient to the changes that are already happening," the report states. And worse, the pace of adaptation is slowing just when it needs to accelerate.

While the report argues that the UK could still reach net zero by 2050, it warns that this alone will not protect the country from flooding, heatwaves and food system instability. "Adaptation is as important as mitigation," the committee notes, "and right now we’re failing on both fronts."

This echoes what climate scientist Tim Lenton told The Guardian in a powerful interview entitled 'This is a fight for life'.

Lenton, an expert on climate tipping points, warns that cascading climate failures are not decades away – they are unfolding now.

What may once have been theoretical risks are becoming visible ruptures in our weather systems, water cycles and social infrastructure.

"We are in a planetary emergency," he declares bluntly. "But there’s still agency. We have a meaningful chance to turn this around – if we act."

Tipping points and privilege

Among the most chilling parts of Lenton’s interview is his critique of how the wealthy attempt to insulate themselves from climate impacts – by migrating, insuring, air conditioning or building physical barriers.

"People with financial resources are trying to buy resilience," he says. "In the long run this is not a crisis that respects wealth."

We saw that vividly in 2023’s flash floods in Germany, and again in recent Canadian wildfires and southern US droughts. Critical infrastructure collapses. Water fails. Food prices spike. Insurance markets break down. And while the vulnerable suffer first, no one is untouched

In short, climate chaos is not a distant threat to people in far away lands. It is here, now, and it is coming for the systems we all rely on.

Fiction as foresight

As someone who has turned to fiction rooted in climate science as a means of conveying urgency, I see this means of storytelling as a way to make the different facets of climate change more real. 

My forthcoming novel, Flood Waters Down, imagines a near-future Britain fractured by flooding, individual greed and collective disorientation.

The geography is drawn from Climate Central’s real-world sea level projection tools. The characters – though fictional – face choices rooted in policy inertia, displacement and social fragmentation.

They live in a country that pretended, for too long, that it could “cope” its way through climate change.

If that sounds familiar, it's because it is.

In the same week, CNN in the United States detailed the now-undeniable link between human-caused global warming and record-breaking heatwaves across the globe. "We are seeing extremes that scientists didn’t expect until the 2030s or 2040s," one researcher noted. "We’ve accelerated the timeline of risk."

Heat isn’t neutral

Extreme heat is not just uncomfortable. It kills. It erodes productivity, threatens food security and degrades mental health. It disproportionately affects the elderly, the poor, outdoor workers and those living in poorly insulated or densely built environments.

And yet, in much of the UK’s mainstream media and politics, heat is still largely treated as a lifestyle issue, not a public health or systemic risk.

Another recent editorial in The Guardian put it plainly: "We must stop thinking of climate breakdown as a future issue. We need to build national readiness now, or we’ll let everyday life keep breaking down."

That means investing in climate-resilient infrastructure, yes. But it also means telling new stories – stories that prepare people not just with facts, but with frameworks for feeling, thinking and acting differently.

Inflection point

The convergence of science, policy warnings, media coverage and lived experience is no coincidence. We are in an inflection moment – when the consequences of inaction are visible yet the possibilities of change and adaptation remain open.

Whether we respond with courage or complacency will define more than just the future of emissions. It will define the kind of society we become and the kind of world we leave.

In Flood Waters Down, the waters rise – and so does something else. Its characters and the challenges they face aren’t far from us. They’re just a few degrees – and decisions – ahead.

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 Flood Waters Down – for further details contact Clive Simpson