«Creative Destruction» by Alastair Bowman

When Mark crashes into the Norfolk countryside, he is the first to visit the Outside from London in forty years. He thinks he knows how his once prosperous country became divided, tearing his family apart along with so many others. Now in the post-capitalist Trust, he has to question who he is, not just in terms of their shared history and his own values, but the truth about his own past as well. He falls in love with Gwendolyn, not knowing that his past could catch up with him first. Gwendolyn rehearses a play that is an allegory of the US-led world since 1945, giving context to the choices we now face. Her mother's life takes us from the present to the Separation, and the choices she made to flee London when so many were desperate to go the other way. As Mark's motives for staging his crash become clear, alternative futures open up for Gwendolyn and, ultimately, the entire Trust. Had her mother stayed in London she would have lived in the material abundance of a society that has abolished scarcity. She is proud to be post-capitalist and post-hydrocarbon, and also post-religion, bringing Mark's faith into conflict with a stark secularism. Mark's future becomes tied to forces beyond his control, and his future with Gwendolyn risks slipping away; or worse.