“I want my readers to be scared…”
Sarah Skelton
Dr Paul Hardisty is a Canadian living in Western Australia and a world-leading environmental scientist and expert in climate change. Paul has worked all over the world – Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Eastern Turkey, the Arctic, and Ukraine – often during times of political upheaval or conflict, and these first-hand experiences bring harsh realism to his writing.
The Book Nook Stewarton felt privileged to welcome Paul Hardisty in 2023 to talk about the first two books in his climate change thriller trilogy, which in its entirety covers 2024 to 2082. This was a thought-provoking and impactful event, so we were delighted to welcome Paul back with us in October this year to talk about the final book, The Hope, which was a SciFiNow book of the month.
His trilogy has been very popular with Book Nook customers, so I asked Paul what impact he wants these books to have on readers.
“My climate thrillers are based on a deep understanding of climate science, from my time as Director of Australia’s National Climate Adaptation Science Program. The world I describe is entirely plausible as a worst-case scenario if we continue on our current trajectory. Much of what I envisioned for the near future in The Forcing and The Descent has already come to pass. It’s scary, and I want my readers to be scared, while remaining realistically hopeful, and more aware of what they can do to help create the world we want.”
As a Canadian, he feels a deep affinity for Scotland’s wild, cold places and its warm people so I asked him whether we are more sheltered from the extremes of climate change here. He explained that Scotland and other northern countries are more exposed to climate change than people might think.
“Many Canadians also feel that ‘oh well, a couple of degrees warmer wouldn’t be a bad thing, especially in winter’, but the fundamental changes to fragile northern ecosystems, terrestrial and marine, threaten biodiversity, water supply and livelihoods more than most people understand, and the level of down-side uncertainty is significant. The fires and heatwaves in Europe and North America this summer are just the start. The climate models over the decades have gotten better and better but have consistently underestimated how bad things would get and how fast. We need to reduce emissions globally quickly to stave off the worst of the damage, and we also need to adapt to the changes that are already locked in.”
From reading the trilogy, I found the political landscape and characters to be very recognisable and asked Paul how like real-life it actually is.
“If we keep sleepwalking towards the edge, if we fail to act, there is a very good chance that the world described in the trilogy will eventuate. So the trilogy is a cautionary tale. The Forcing is about what could happen. The Descent is about how it could happen, and The Hope is about why it doesn’t have to happen that way – hence the title.”
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless in these circumstances. What hope does Paul have to offer us?
“The Hope offers a hopeful conclusion to the trilogy, showing first that as long as people are willing to fight for what is right, that they can overcome any oppressor, and second that right now a pathway exists to change direction and create an egalitarian society where we are living in balance with nature and each other.”
I then asked Paul about his work in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion. He’s determined to provide an honest, independent view for readers, saying: “Ukrainians are fighting not to be absorbed into that new darkness that threatens to envelop the world. My new novel, The Kill Machine, a literary thriller set in Ukraine during the war, is out 24th February 2027. I would love to come back to the Book Nook to talk to your readers about it.”
Finally, I ask what role he thinks books and reading play in preserving humanity amid crises.
“The title The Kill Machine refers not only to the machinery that kills soldiers and civilians in war, but the other kind of machine that is killing our ability to write and read and reason, namely AI. Reading and literacy were what enabled humanity to throw off the yoke of centuries of feudalism. Democracy requires an informed and educated citizenry to function and flourish. If we are no longer literate, we are easily controlled by superstition and disinformation, and unable to resist those who want to control the world, we once again become serfs, slaves. In the future envisaged in The Forcing trilogy, books are illegal for exactly these reasons. This makes the heroine of The Hope, Boo Ashworth, a savant who can memorise entire books in a single reading, a threat to the regime, and thus also a powerful force for liberation, democracy, and therefore hope for the future.”
All of Paul’s books are available to purchase or order from The Book Nook Stewarton.
