{"id":24742,"date":"2026-02-23T10:43:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T10:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/?post_type=events&p=24742"},"modified":"2026-02-23T10:58:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T10:58:30","slug":"future-song-a-thrutopian-vision-of-near-future-bristol","status":"publish","type":"events","link":"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/events\/future-song-a-thrutopian-vision-of-near-future-bristol\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Song: a thrutopian vision of near-future Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dystopian visions far outnumber utopian visions in literature, and my last novel, Vampires of Avonmouth<\/em>, is no exception. Set late this century between Avonmouth, which has become a vertiginous mega-city, and a part of future West Africa corresponding to today’s Accra, climate change is all too real, yes. But the 2087 world of the book is also pervaded by shoddy AI; it’s run by technology corporations; and everyone’s brains are directly connected to the internet. In effect, the first two of those things were reality (or close to it) within a few years of writing the book, and the third is already Elon Musk’s immediate goal. So much for trying to describe a far noir future.<\/p>\n

By contrast my latest novel, Future Song<\/em> (forthcoming c. May this year) is set firmly in Bristol and in a nearer future, against a backdrop of adaptation to the realities of climate change. It’s neither a utopia nor a dystopia, but what Rupert Read calls a thrutopia. I’ll be explaining what that means in terms of how we respond to unfolding crises, and what kind of future-imagining and future-thinking I’ve been doing as I\u2019ve written it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dystopian visions far outnumber utopian visions in literature, and my last novel, Vampires of Avonmouth, is no exception. Set late this century between Avonmouth, which has become a vertiginous mega-city, and a part of future West Africa corresponding to today’s Accra, climate change is all too real, yes. But the 2087 world of the book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categories":[1994,883],"tags":[670,913,2188,875,2187],"class_list":["post-24742","events","type-events","status-publish","hentry","category-civic-environment-civic-amenities-housing","category-environmental","tag-avonmouth","tag-bristol","tag-dystopia","tag-novels","tag-utopia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFuture Song: a thrutopian vision of near-future Bristol - Bristol Radical History Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/events\/future-song-a-thrutopian-vision-of-near-future-bristol\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Future Song: a thrutopian vision of near-future Bristol - Bristol Radical History Group\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dystopian visions far outnumber utopian visions in literature, and my last novel, Vampires of Avonmouth, is no exception. 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