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News From Gardenia
When Gavin Meckler's light aircraft encounters a mysterious cloud and crashes to earth, he discovers that the eerily quiet landscape in which he has landed is 200 years older than the one from which he took off. In this gentle, peaceful, sustainable new world, it is possible to travel from one side of the globe to the other in a matter of minutes without burning fuel, and everyone is a gardener because that's how they can be sure to eat. Inspired by William Morris's utopian novel News from Nowhere, Robert Llewellyn shows us a future where we don't burn anything to make anything else and which isn't hovering on the brink of disaster; where aliens haven't invaded, meteors haven’t hit, and zombies haven’t taken over. In short, a world where humanity eventually gets it right. All the technology described in the novel has seen the light of day in reality. Llewellyn's future isn't perfect and may not be very likely, but it is entirely possible.
235 pages, Paperback
First published March 22, 2012
14 people are currently reading
392 people want to read
About the author
Robert Llewellyn
57 books75 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
Robert Llewellyn is an English actor, presenter, and writer. He is best known for his roles as presenter of Scrapheap Challenge, and as the android Kryten in the hit sitcom Red Dwarf.
Robert Llewellyn is an English actor, presenter, and writer. He is best known for his roles as presenter of Scrapheap Challenge, and as the android Kryten in the hit sitcom Red Dwarf.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
November 30, 2016
I have several major quibbles with this book, the last of which may seem a little contradictory.
The first and most significant - the protagonist is a jerk. He reminded me of that bit in ‘The Social Network’, when Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend is breaking up with him and says, “You think women don’t like you because you’re a nerd [geek?]. But it’s actually because you’re an asshole.” I paraphrase, but you get the idea. Someone needs to say this to Gavin. When he rocked up in the future, I kept expecting someone to call him on his misogyny. No-one did! There was even a moment when he commented smugly that ‘gender roles’ did not appear to have changed in the past 200 years. Bafflingly, the woman he said this to somehow did not understanding what he was saying and let it pass. This struck me as a missed opportunity.
What really got up my nose, I think, is that the author tries to position Gavin as a technology-minded guy who isn’t great with people. Some vague reference is made to his having ADD. If this was supposed to imply that Gavin is on the autistic spectrum, it was done incredibly awkwardly. Moreover, he only ever seems to have social issues with women. I was reminded once again that these socially-inept-geek character tropes are only ever applied to male characters. As Gavin tells us early on, women only care about things that discussing feelings, buying nice houses, and going to farmer’s markets. I could happily have broken both this guy’s arms to express my feelings about him without the need for discussion.
Secondly, I had quite high hopes for this novel as it has an excellent starting concept. Inspired by News from Nowhere by William Morris, it tries to extrapolate a utopian future for the UK in 2211. As both author and protagonist observe, utopian writing is extremely rare at the moment. Instead, we have a slew of apocalyptic disaster novels, TV shows, and films, plus a healthy of crop of dystopias that often star photogenic youths. I wasn’t terribly impressed by the execution of ‘News from Gardenia’, however. For one thing, I was amazed that the protagonist never thought to ask what was happening outside the UK until he was sent abroad on a day trip. It also baffled me how incurious he seemed about the 200 years he missed, not bothering to read the book he’d been given for some time. His tedious preoccupation with Grace (who was mysteriously never given a personality) crowded out the actual utopian detail that I was hoping for. Ironically, he kept going on about his feelings when I wanted technical details!
For example, how exactly were children were brought up and educated? Did people move around a lot or settle in one place for extended periods? What was the biodiversity like? How had climate change altered the weather patterns? What were people’s attitudes to sexuality and gender? Who created the AI that apparently ran the infrastructure? Could people communicate with it? Was anyone living in space, or on the moon, or on Mars? In what ways did the so-called Book differ from the internet as we know it now? What was Africa like? Why wasn’t South America mentioned; did it still exist? Were pandas extinct? Had religion really died out everywhere but the American Midwest? What was literature like? Music? Art? What were the big research questions for scientists? Had alcohol and drugs vanished? Etc, etc, etc.
Thirdly, at only 235 pages ‘New from Gardenia’ simply wasn’t long enough. It was the only book I took on an overnight trip and I finished it before the first of three trains home even arrived. I was left with only a free-sheet to read, an ignominious predicament indeed. Apparently this is the first in a trilogy. It ends abruptly and arbitrarily on a cliffhanger, whereas with another 200 pages to make Gavin less of a jerk and explain more of the setting it may have ended up a better read. As it was, distinctly disappointing.
The first and most significant - the protagonist is a jerk. He reminded me of that bit in ‘The Social Network’, when Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend is breaking up with him and says, “You think women don’t like you because you’re a nerd [geek?]. But it’s actually because you’re an asshole.” I paraphrase, but you get the idea. Someone needs to say this to Gavin. When he rocked up in the future, I kept expecting someone to call him on his misogyny. No-one did! There was even a moment when he commented smugly that ‘gender roles’ did not appear to have changed in the past 200 years. Bafflingly, the woman he said this to somehow did not understanding what he was saying and let it pass. This struck me as a missed opportunity.
What really got up my nose, I think, is that the author tries to position Gavin as a technology-minded guy who isn’t great with people. Some vague reference is made to his having ADD. If this was supposed to imply that Gavin is on the autistic spectrum, it was done incredibly awkwardly. Moreover, he only ever seems to have social issues with women. I was reminded once again that these socially-inept-geek character tropes are only ever applied to male characters. As Gavin tells us early on, women only care about things that discussing feelings, buying nice houses, and going to farmer’s markets. I could happily have broken both this guy’s arms to express my feelings about him without the need for discussion.
Secondly, I had quite high hopes for this novel as it has an excellent starting concept. Inspired by News from Nowhere by William Morris, it tries to extrapolate a utopian future for the UK in 2211. As both author and protagonist observe, utopian writing is extremely rare at the moment. Instead, we have a slew of apocalyptic disaster novels, TV shows, and films, plus a healthy of crop of dystopias that often star photogenic youths. I wasn’t terribly impressed by the execution of ‘News from Gardenia’, however. For one thing, I was amazed that the protagonist never thought to ask what was happening outside the UK until he was sent abroad on a day trip. It also baffled me how incurious he seemed about the 200 years he missed, not bothering to read the book he’d been given for some time. His tedious preoccupation with Grace (who was mysteriously never given a personality) crowded out the actual utopian detail that I was hoping for. Ironically, he kept going on about his feelings when I wanted technical details!
For example, how exactly were children were brought up and educated? Did people move around a lot or settle in one place for extended periods? What was the biodiversity like? How had climate change altered the weather patterns? What were people’s attitudes to sexuality and gender? Who created the AI that apparently ran the infrastructure? Could people communicate with it? Was anyone living in space, or on the moon, or on Mars? In what ways did the so-called Book differ from the internet as we know it now? What was Africa like? Why wasn’t South America mentioned; did it still exist? Were pandas extinct? Had religion really died out everywhere but the American Midwest? What was literature like? Music? Art? What were the big research questions for scientists? Had alcohol and drugs vanished? Etc, etc, etc.
Thirdly, at only 235 pages ‘New from Gardenia’ simply wasn’t long enough. It was the only book I took on an overnight trip and I finished it before the first of three trains home even arrived. I was left with only a free-sheet to read, an ignominious predicament indeed. Apparently this is the first in a trilogy. It ends abruptly and arbitrarily on a cliffhanger, whereas with another 200 pages to make Gavin less of a jerk and explain more of the setting it may have ended up a better read. As it was, distinctly disappointing.
February 10, 2014
The idea of creating a proper utopia, as opposed to portraying an idea that was meant to lead to a utopia and ended up being oppressive/only working for the upper class citizens, is not a new one, but it's not one I've seen around much recently. Part of that is probably that it's hard to make a society like that interesting; my English teacher Mr. E always used to point out that literature is about things going wrong, that what we are interested in is not happy people, but the conflicts they come into. I would add that we enjoy a happy ending, true, but it needs to be earned, whether by an epic battle or a comic series of misunderstandings and angst.
The problem with News from Gardenia, for me, is partly that. It's a utopian society, and nothing seems to happen through the entire novel apart from the narrator being transported forward in time -- where very conveniently, people immediately recognise what's happened and sort out said hapless narrator.
The other problem is, well, I didn't like the POV character. I'm not sure if he's intended to be on the autism spectrum, as another reviewer suggested, or whether he's just meant to be the stereotypical insensitive nerd guy, but his attitude to his girlfriend from page one was making me grind my teeth, and it didn't get better. The writing isn't good enough to carry that, making me wonder if it's actually a character voice or the author. Blech.
So in summary, not worth it, sadly. But hey, if anyone wants it, I'm putting it on Bookmooch.
The problem with News from Gardenia, for me, is partly that. It's a utopian society, and nothing seems to happen through the entire novel apart from the narrator being transported forward in time -- where very conveniently, people immediately recognise what's happened and sort out said hapless narrator.
The other problem is, well, I didn't like the POV character. I'm not sure if he's intended to be on the autism spectrum, as another reviewer suggested, or whether he's just meant to be the stereotypical insensitive nerd guy, but his attitude to his girlfriend from page one was making me grind my teeth, and it didn't get better. The writing isn't good enough to carry that, making me wonder if it's actually a character voice or the author. Blech.
So in summary, not worth it, sadly. But hey, if anyone wants it, I'm putting it on Bookmooch.
May 15, 2012
This is a Utopian novel and as the author has acknowledged it's a tricky thing to write well. I think he does a decent job but in the end it feels more like a travelogue than a novel. It wasn't too long though.
Also, I've just finished reading a few minutes ago and I have to say I felt the ending was a bit abrupt.
Also, I've just finished reading a few minutes ago and I have to say I felt the ending was a bit abrupt.
February 25, 2013
This was one of those novels that I devoured in a day. Llewellyn captivated me from the first page. Gavin is a busy man and he has little time to reflect on his life and little time for his wife. An important man, a busy man. However, when a freak anomaly sees him transported two hundred years into the future he realises the world is a very different place to the one he left behind and time might be all he has.
Llewellyn has created a very different utopia within this novel. The lead character Gavin isn't good at human relationships, the only thing he truly understands is the complex and unemotional world of mechanical engineering. He finds himself in an England very different from our own. Power is free and universally available. There is no monetary system and no form of government. Like a giant commune people muck in and get along, strife is rare. Longevity is common and everyone is fit, healthy and strong.
Of course Gavin cannot accept this simple utopia and starts looking for flaws and cracks. Relationships and the family units are not the same as they once were and Gavin finds that he struggles to get to grips with it. Behind this society is technology beyond Gavin's wildest dreams and his engineer's senses twitch as he starts to delve deeper.
I understands News From Gardenia is to be a trilogy so the author spends a lot of time building up the framework of the world. Llewellyn expertly guides us along using Gavin's sense of exploration and wonder as the vehicle. As well as the outer journey we see Gavin's inner emotional development as he learns to relate to the strangely detached folk from the future.
An intelligent novel that can't help but make you think of our own immediate future and the energy crisis that looms large. A story that is as much about human nature as it is about fantastic technology. A gripping read from start to finish.
Llewellyn has created a very different utopia within this novel. The lead character Gavin isn't good at human relationships, the only thing he truly understands is the complex and unemotional world of mechanical engineering. He finds himself in an England very different from our own. Power is free and universally available. There is no monetary system and no form of government. Like a giant commune people muck in and get along, strife is rare. Longevity is common and everyone is fit, healthy and strong.
Of course Gavin cannot accept this simple utopia and starts looking for flaws and cracks. Relationships and the family units are not the same as they once were and Gavin finds that he struggles to get to grips with it. Behind this society is technology beyond Gavin's wildest dreams and his engineer's senses twitch as he starts to delve deeper.
I understands News From Gardenia is to be a trilogy so the author spends a lot of time building up the framework of the world. Llewellyn expertly guides us along using Gavin's sense of exploration and wonder as the vehicle. As well as the outer journey we see Gavin's inner emotional development as he learns to relate to the strangely detached folk from the future.
An intelligent novel that can't help but make you think of our own immediate future and the energy crisis that looms large. A story that is as much about human nature as it is about fantastic technology. A gripping read from start to finish.
May 13, 2012
Much to my irritation, Robert Llewellyn books aren't available in Kindle format: and, as far as I can tell, he's not written one for a while. So when he popped up on Google+ asking for funding for a new book (using a website called unbound), I thought I'd pop along and help. Three months later, the book is finished - my name's in the back - and, once I realised I could actually download it (that's a whole other story), I settled down to read it on the Kindle (and in a nicely-produced .mobi version).
News from Gardenia is an interesting look into the future, told from the point of view of someone who has kind of stumbled into it. It's interesting and thought-provoking, though, as with all these type of books, it leaves lots of questions unanswered; particularly in terms of believability.
I found the first half enthralling: lots of new characters, lots of glimpses into what the future might look like in the UK, some comedy, and some clever reveals. There's a good storyline, and some nice touches that show that Llewellyn is not just a goon-faced actor in a rubber mask in Red Dwarf, but someone who thinks quite carefully about technology, particularly power sources. (Unsurprising, since he also presents online television programmes about electric vehicles).
The second half is less enjoyable, perhaps reflecting a requirement to hit a publishing date for this crowd-funded book. A flimsy plot construct means we get to meet plenty of new characters very briefly, and some alternative futures, though skated over with little detail. We lose the light-hearted style and the witty characters who inhabit his life. And then the book unexpectedly stops, in a way that leaves little resolved and probably more questions to answer.
As a view of a few ideas of what the future might look like, this book's an interesting and enjoyable read. As a story, it's rather less satisfying. A few continuity errors toward the end of the book seem to point to a bit of a rush-job; which is a shame.
I'd still recommend it: but Llewellyn's previous books are significantly better. Hopefully he'll release some of those, too.
News from Gardenia is an interesting look into the future, told from the point of view of someone who has kind of stumbled into it. It's interesting and thought-provoking, though, as with all these type of books, it leaves lots of questions unanswered; particularly in terms of believability.
I found the first half enthralling: lots of new characters, lots of glimpses into what the future might look like in the UK, some comedy, and some clever reveals. There's a good storyline, and some nice touches that show that Llewellyn is not just a goon-faced actor in a rubber mask in Red Dwarf, but someone who thinks quite carefully about technology, particularly power sources. (Unsurprising, since he also presents online television programmes about electric vehicles).
The second half is less enjoyable, perhaps reflecting a requirement to hit a publishing date for this crowd-funded book. A flimsy plot construct means we get to meet plenty of new characters very briefly, and some alternative futures, though skated over with little detail. We lose the light-hearted style and the witty characters who inhabit his life. And then the book unexpectedly stops, in a way that leaves little resolved and probably more questions to answer.
As a view of a few ideas of what the future might look like, this book's an interesting and enjoyable read. As a story, it's rather less satisfying. A few continuity errors toward the end of the book seem to point to a bit of a rush-job; which is a shame.
I'd still recommend it: but Llewellyn's previous books are significantly better. Hopefully he'll release some of those, too.
June 29, 2012
Sadly, I have to say that I did not think this book was very good. It's a utopian novel, and suffered from the same problems that all utopian novels seem to me to have: nothing actually happens beyond "character goes to utopia, residents of utopia explain things about their society and history". At least in Herland there's some conflict, but seriously nothing happens in this book at all. I also thought that the setting was wrong - it's supposed to be about 200 years in the future, 150 years after society collapsed, and everyone in the UK is mixed race (Anglo-Indian-looking, I believe), living long lives in perfect health, and living in self-sufficient communal housing, but no one knows how any of the technology they rely on actually works. Also the whole country is covered in forest. I don't feel like enough time had passed for such changes to have occurred, and it bothered me. Well, I know that this utopia is really Bobby's hippy eco-geek dream world (except with no scientists or engineers?) and that is fine by me, but if you're trying to present something as being a realistic vision of the future it would be better if it were actually realistic.
Additionally, this book really needed to be looked at by an editor. It's supposed to be written in an informal, chatty first-person style, but the number of comma splices and the stilted dialogue started to wear on me pretty quickly. There are also several misspellings of the "sight/site" variety.
Additionally, this book really needed to be looked at by an editor. It's supposed to be written in an informal, chatty first-person style, but the number of comma splices and the stilted dialogue started to wear on me pretty quickly. There are also several misspellings of the "sight/site" variety.
May 4, 2012
A wonderfully optimistic view of the future. For once the future is Utopic and wonderful instead of apocalyptic and dreadful.
Bits inspired from News From Nowhere, from The Time Machine, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, amongst others.
Truly enjoyable, and thought-provoking read. I highly recommend the audio version as the author reads and does wonderful voices which brings his story even more to life.
Bits inspired from News From Nowhere, from The Time Machine, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, amongst others.
Truly enjoyable, and thought-provoking read. I highly recommend the audio version as the author reads and does wonderful voices which brings his story even more to life.
February 3, 2013
This book is one of those that caught my eye right from the shelf in the store. Not just because of its striking green cover (which helps), but because of what the preamble promises. It's a book about the future, but not a future where war, zombies or aliens have ravaged society. It's a future where humanity seems to get it right. This in itself intrigued me, so it was inevitable that I was eventually going to buy and read it.
Initially I have to admit that this book really held my interest. Llewellyn claims that all of the ideas in this book are possible if not likely, and indeed the majority of the technology described in the book is interesting simply because it does sound viable. I like dystopian novels, but found this book to be a pleasant change of pace simply because it approaches sci-fi from a different angle. And I think it is fair to say that both the premise and substance of this book are interesting.
However, the problem is one that was perhaps inevitable, and that is that whilst the protagonist (a man from the present day called Gavin) is content with being occupied by these futuristic wonders, the reader is likely to want more. The book is quite short and has a very basic plot, which in practice seems to just be a mechanism to allow Gavin to move to different areas and experience different things. He meets numerous people in this futuristic world, but the individual relationships (even the love interest) remain underdeveloped by the end of the book.
This is a shame, because there are hints given within the book of potential for a more meaty plot with some more substantial issues to be explored. But that simply never happens. The ending is something of a cliffhanger and makes a sequel inevitable, but it so abruptly brings an end to the plot that I found myself disappointed by a story that I certainly I did enjoy, but which I felt had the potential to provide so much more.
The sequel to this book, which is called News from the Squares, is currently well on its way to being funded on unbound.co.uk. I expect I will buy it and read it simply because the premise (and it many ways the substance) of News of Gardenia really did appeal to me and I did enjoy it a lot. I just felt it fell short of its potential. Hopefully the sequel will not do the same.
Initially I have to admit that this book really held my interest. Llewellyn claims that all of the ideas in this book are possible if not likely, and indeed the majority of the technology described in the book is interesting simply because it does sound viable. I like dystopian novels, but found this book to be a pleasant change of pace simply because it approaches sci-fi from a different angle. And I think it is fair to say that both the premise and substance of this book are interesting.
However, the problem is one that was perhaps inevitable, and that is that whilst the protagonist (a man from the present day called Gavin) is content with being occupied by these futuristic wonders, the reader is likely to want more. The book is quite short and has a very basic plot, which in practice seems to just be a mechanism to allow Gavin to move to different areas and experience different things. He meets numerous people in this futuristic world, but the individual relationships (even the love interest) remain underdeveloped by the end of the book.
This is a shame, because there are hints given within the book of potential for a more meaty plot with some more substantial issues to be explored. But that simply never happens. The ending is something of a cliffhanger and makes a sequel inevitable, but it so abruptly brings an end to the plot that I found myself disappointed by a story that I certainly I did enjoy, but which I felt had the potential to provide so much more.
The sequel to this book, which is called News from the Squares, is currently well on its way to being funded on unbound.co.uk. I expect I will buy it and read it simply because the premise (and it many ways the substance) of News of Gardenia really did appeal to me and I did enjoy it a lot. I just felt it fell short of its potential. Hopefully the sequel will not do the same.
February 14, 2019
I stumbled upon this as part of my recent discovery that the Cave/Seeds song More News From Nowhere was a reference to a speculative fiction classic from 1890, News from Nowhere by William Morris (the Nowhere in both titles is just the literal meaning of Utopia, which took me quite a while to figure out), which I then had a look at. Dated, but charming. I also learned that there was this contemporary update to it, so I checked that out, too.
The book was enjoyable enough, but. (Lengthy pet peeve treatment ahead. Be warned.)
Morris' original utopist fiction suggested that an end to scarcity will bring about global happiness. This theme from socialist philosophy has already been updated and brought into the present quite successfully by the Iain Banks' Culture series, and unfortunately Llewellyn falls a little short here. His utopian future is based on a complete collapse and a following reinvention of society, with no reason given as to why a society rising from war and chaos would be different from the one that caused war and chaos in the first place. Worse, the behavior of his characters often seems to directly contradict what he tells us about how society as a whole now operates. People still like nice things and supply is quite limited, but somehow in spite of this, distribution has ceased to be a problem.
A second big issue is the fact that the protagonist is an engineer at today's cutting edge of development, who is scientifically incurious about what goes on around him. On top of that, the science of the world built here also make little sense.
This engineer finds himself in a situation where batteries are magically insta-charged by some omnipresent field that sounds a lot like the Force from Star Wars, and barely like plausible physics at all. His first reaction is not: holy shit, what is this completely bonkers field, I need to find out. His first reaction is "oh, right, like with that Tesla guy". And when he is given a device that provides instant access to all knowledge, he still leaves it at that, for this and any other question. He does ask for help with cooking at some point, though. Zero curiosity about unexplained Clarkian technomagic in an engineer protagonist from our present, who is quite familiar with Wikipedia. Right ho.
Another main plot device is a space-elevator-transport system. Pods zip you up a tether line to just outside the atmosphere, transfer you over to your destination up there, where you drop down another tether. The author describes this in some detail: the distance travelled up is 50 km, it takes 4 minutes to go up (and presumably also to come down again), and the transfer from London to New York takes 22 minutes in total. While passengers are going up, they can feel their weight lessen, once they reach the top they are completely weightless and stay that way for the flight's duration. Then earths weight grabs onto them as they descend. Nice imagery, maybe, but does it make sense?
Newton found gravity to be inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the two masses. Going 50 kilometers up adds about 1% to the distance from the earths center, so weight is going to drop by about 2% at that height. Note I said DROP BY, not DROP TO. Your weight at 50 kilometers up is about 98% of what it is down here.
So why are people weightless in space stations, you ask? Because they didn't just go up in an elevator, they are orbiting. We don't need to really work out the exact math, because orbital velocity (the speed at which you go around a body in a circle instead of falling down into it) doesn't depend very much on altitude at such low heights, so at 50 kilometers orbital velocity is roughly what it is for satellites or the ISS, which are a bit higher. Orbital velocity then is about 28000 km/h. The equator, for comparison, moves at about 1600 km/h. So if you started your ascent at the equator and wanted to be weightless when you reached the top, you'd need to really step on the gas and accelerate laterally, all while also staying on that vertical table. So, nope, not gonna happen. Gravity on this elevator therefore will not be different from any other elevator you ride. It'll just take a bit longer.
(Incidentally, I said equator there, because that is pretty much the only place where a space elevator with vertical tethers can work. No spaceport London, no spaceport New York. But let's be generous and ignore that.)
Lets look at the rest of the trip. How fast would you have to accelerate to get up to 50 kilometers in 4 minutes? Let's assume constant acceleration by whatever propels the pods up, and for simplicity let's assume the same amount of deceleration for the second half of the journey. The distance traveled under these conditions is 1/4*a*t^2 which means a=sqrt(4*50000/240^2), which works out to about 3.5 m/s^2. None too bad compared to earths gravitational acceleration of 9.81 m/s^2. This means that you'd feel roughly 35% heavier than normal the first half of your way up and about 65% of your normal weight for the second half, when the pod is braking. When it stops you're back at 98% your surface weight. Also note that the top speed for this journey is 833 m/s, or about 2500 km/h. If you're comfortable going that fast through atmosphere in a metal can, hop on. Just note that hitting a bird at that speed is a truly awful idea. But then there presumably are none at 25 km up even in future utopialand, so we're golden.
Now you're 50 km above London and need to go to 50 km above New York. You have 14 minutes to do so. With the same assumptions as above and a distance of about 5500 km, this requires a constant acceleration of a whopping 31 m/s^2 for the entirety of the trip. In other words, you will be weighed down by three times your normal weight during the entire transfer (however that propulsion is achieved, which is another entirely unanswered question). 3g are probably tolerable for that amount of time, but a pleasant trip this is not, not by a long shot. It certainly is far from the zero g spacy environment described in the book. The top speed along that route is now 94000 km/h, much higher than orbital velocity, which means that keeping constant elevation will be impossible and you'll go in some weirdly shaped curve out and back in again. The good news is there are definitely no birds up here. But you better hope no pod-poop from previous trips is floating around, or instead of getting to New York you're getting dead.
To sum up, this is an utopia no aspect of which makes sense psychologically or physically, and which required the collapse of the entire human civilization to come about. Yay future! Yay fiction books!
(Incidentally, for proper orbital mechanics in a thrilling story, I recommend Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. Although that one is not exactly a Utopia, either.)
The book was enjoyable enough, but. (Lengthy pet peeve treatment ahead. Be warned.)
Morris' original utopist fiction suggested that an end to scarcity will bring about global happiness. This theme from socialist philosophy has already been updated and brought into the present quite successfully by the Iain Banks' Culture series, and unfortunately Llewellyn falls a little short here. His utopian future is based on a complete collapse and a following reinvention of society, with no reason given as to why a society rising from war and chaos would be different from the one that caused war and chaos in the first place. Worse, the behavior of his characters often seems to directly contradict what he tells us about how society as a whole now operates. People still like nice things and supply is quite limited, but somehow in spite of this, distribution has ceased to be a problem.
A second big issue is the fact that the protagonist is an engineer at today's cutting edge of development, who is scientifically incurious about what goes on around him. On top of that, the science of the world built here also make little sense.
This engineer finds himself in a situation where batteries are magically insta-charged by some omnipresent field that sounds a lot like the Force from Star Wars, and barely like plausible physics at all. His first reaction is not: holy shit, what is this completely bonkers field, I need to find out. His first reaction is "oh, right, like with that Tesla guy". And when he is given a device that provides instant access to all knowledge, he still leaves it at that, for this and any other question. He does ask for help with cooking at some point, though. Zero curiosity about unexplained Clarkian technomagic in an engineer protagonist from our present, who is quite familiar with Wikipedia. Right ho.
Another main plot device is a space-elevator-transport system. Pods zip you up a tether line to just outside the atmosphere, transfer you over to your destination up there, where you drop down another tether. The author describes this in some detail: the distance travelled up is 50 km, it takes 4 minutes to go up (and presumably also to come down again), and the transfer from London to New York takes 22 minutes in total. While passengers are going up, they can feel their weight lessen, once they reach the top they are completely weightless and stay that way for the flight's duration. Then earths weight grabs onto them as they descend. Nice imagery, maybe, but does it make sense?
Newton found gravity to be inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the two masses. Going 50 kilometers up adds about 1% to the distance from the earths center, so weight is going to drop by about 2% at that height. Note I said DROP BY, not DROP TO. Your weight at 50 kilometers up is about 98% of what it is down here.
So why are people weightless in space stations, you ask? Because they didn't just go up in an elevator, they are orbiting. We don't need to really work out the exact math, because orbital velocity (the speed at which you go around a body in a circle instead of falling down into it) doesn't depend very much on altitude at such low heights, so at 50 kilometers orbital velocity is roughly what it is for satellites or the ISS, which are a bit higher. Orbital velocity then is about 28000 km/h. The equator, for comparison, moves at about 1600 km/h. So if you started your ascent at the equator and wanted to be weightless when you reached the top, you'd need to really step on the gas and accelerate laterally, all while also staying on that vertical table. So, nope, not gonna happen. Gravity on this elevator therefore will not be different from any other elevator you ride. It'll just take a bit longer.
(Incidentally, I said equator there, because that is pretty much the only place where a space elevator with vertical tethers can work. No spaceport London, no spaceport New York. But let's be generous and ignore that.)
Lets look at the rest of the trip. How fast would you have to accelerate to get up to 50 kilometers in 4 minutes? Let's assume constant acceleration by whatever propels the pods up, and for simplicity let's assume the same amount of deceleration for the second half of the journey. The distance traveled under these conditions is 1/4*a*t^2 which means a=sqrt(4*50000/240^2), which works out to about 3.5 m/s^2. None too bad compared to earths gravitational acceleration of 9.81 m/s^2. This means that you'd feel roughly 35% heavier than normal the first half of your way up and about 65% of your normal weight for the second half, when the pod is braking. When it stops you're back at 98% your surface weight. Also note that the top speed for this journey is 833 m/s, or about 2500 km/h. If you're comfortable going that fast through atmosphere in a metal can, hop on. Just note that hitting a bird at that speed is a truly awful idea. But then there presumably are none at 25 km up even in future utopialand, so we're golden.
Now you're 50 km above London and need to go to 50 km above New York. You have 14 minutes to do so. With the same assumptions as above and a distance of about 5500 km, this requires a constant acceleration of a whopping 31 m/s^2 for the entirety of the trip. In other words, you will be weighed down by three times your normal weight during the entire transfer (however that propulsion is achieved, which is another entirely unanswered question). 3g are probably tolerable for that amount of time, but a pleasant trip this is not, not by a long shot. It certainly is far from the zero g spacy environment described in the book. The top speed along that route is now 94000 km/h, much higher than orbital velocity, which means that keeping constant elevation will be impossible and you'll go in some weirdly shaped curve out and back in again. The good news is there are definitely no birds up here. But you better hope no pod-poop from previous trips is floating around, or instead of getting to New York you're getting dead.
To sum up, this is an utopia no aspect of which makes sense psychologically or physically, and which required the collapse of the entire human civilization to come about. Yay future! Yay fiction books!
(Incidentally, for proper orbital mechanics in a thrilling story, I recommend Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. Although that one is not exactly a Utopia, either.)
August 31, 2013
I had been wanting to read this book for around a year, since I interviewed Robert Llewellyn for Crowdfund it! as a case study for Unbound.
News from Gardenia is set 200 years in the future where the main character Gavin accidentally arrives by plane after flying through a strange cloud. Almost without exception movies set into the future have a world much bleaker than the one we currently inhabit. In fact, this was highlighted for me only last night when my husband suggested we watch 'Loopers' with Bruce Willis.
In his pitch on the Unbound website, Llewellyn said "I felt driven to search for an alternative to the tiresome predictions of everything getting much worse; I wanted to imagine a world where everything has got much better."
And it's true. The world that Gavin lands in IS much better. The ugly buildings of his United Kingdom/England have been torn down to be replaced by gardens and the population is much lower. Everyone gardens, thus why the land is now called Gardenia. People seem much healthier, live longer and are happy with their lives. Life is simpler - no telephones or TV or money. Other countries though - which you can travel to in minutes via 'pods' - operate differently.
Is it all Utopia? To them it seems so although I had an unease about 'the grid' - somehow 'the grid' knows where you are and supplies all power. For instance, you would never need to charge anything. It's always 100%.
Unbound have recently finished a campaign for the next book in the series - News from the Squares - and I will be reading that at some stage to find out what happens to Gavin when he lands in this alternative version of the future - where the world is run by women and the men are a lot more emotionally connected!
News from Gardenia is set 200 years in the future where the main character Gavin accidentally arrives by plane after flying through a strange cloud. Almost without exception movies set into the future have a world much bleaker than the one we currently inhabit. In fact, this was highlighted for me only last night when my husband suggested we watch 'Loopers' with Bruce Willis.
In his pitch on the Unbound website, Llewellyn said "I felt driven to search for an alternative to the tiresome predictions of everything getting much worse; I wanted to imagine a world where everything has got much better."
And it's true. The world that Gavin lands in IS much better. The ugly buildings of his United Kingdom/England have been torn down to be replaced by gardens and the population is much lower. Everyone gardens, thus why the land is now called Gardenia. People seem much healthier, live longer and are happy with their lives. Life is simpler - no telephones or TV or money. Other countries though - which you can travel to in minutes via 'pods' - operate differently.
Is it all Utopia? To them it seems so although I had an unease about 'the grid' - somehow 'the grid' knows where you are and supplies all power. For instance, you would never need to charge anything. It's always 100%.
Unbound have recently finished a campaign for the next book in the series - News from the Squares - and I will be reading that at some stage to find out what happens to Gavin when he lands in this alternative version of the future - where the world is run by women and the men are a lot more emotionally connected!
July 28, 2012
A thought-provoking foray into a futuristic utopia where the possibility of living in harmony with the natural world whilst still enjoying advanced technology is explored. News from Gardenia isn't a deep or complex novel, but it is an interesting and inviting read, with a main character who is hard not to warm to. Its hard to describe this book as a novel though as it often reads as a polite character-lead essay on the possibility of living a life of sustainability through education, socio-economic revision, scientific advancement and population control.
I was particularly interested to learn more about Gardenia, more so than the futuristic view of the US of A (not what you think) or Beijing. The more I learned about Gardenia as a nonecon (i.e. a non economy) the more I started to view the way we currently live as completely absurd; the politics, power, money and pervasive greed. The idea that we could be free from all that bunkum but still function as a society has never been more compelling! I've never considered myself an advocate of a commune-based existence, but Llewellyn paints a credible - and persuasively attractive - alternate way of life.
My only gripe is the author didn't delve more into the community, relationships and day-to-day life in Gardenia. I just felt I didn't learn enough - I was left wanting more - which may have been his master plan all along, who knows? I would certainly like to return.
I would recommend to anyone with a conscience about what we humans are doing to our planet and those generally interested in life, the universe and everything. Probably my most memorable read so far this year!
I was particularly interested to learn more about Gardenia, more so than the futuristic view of the US of A (not what you think) or Beijing. The more I learned about Gardenia as a nonecon (i.e. a non economy) the more I started to view the way we currently live as completely absurd; the politics, power, money and pervasive greed. The idea that we could be free from all that bunkum but still function as a society has never been more compelling! I've never considered myself an advocate of a commune-based existence, but Llewellyn paints a credible - and persuasively attractive - alternate way of life.
My only gripe is the author didn't delve more into the community, relationships and day-to-day life in Gardenia. I just felt I didn't learn enough - I was left wanting more - which may have been his master plan all along, who knows? I would certainly like to return.
I would recommend to anyone with a conscience about what we humans are doing to our planet and those generally interested in life, the universe and everything. Probably my most memorable read so far this year!
September 29, 2012
An odd little book, strongly inspired by William Morris's utopian-socialist News from Nowhere, News from Gardenia is the antidote to all those miserable dystopian novels that abound at the moment. It's a great idea and - after having heard Robert Llewellyn talk about this book on Radio Four, I was really keen to get hold of a copy.
Unfortunately, News from Gardenia doesn't do justice to the boldness of the idea. The style is too self-conscious in its attempts to amuse. The story is repetitive and so is the dialogue, by the end of the book, Gavin had told us his love was SO beautiful, how he wanted to grab her and hold her SO many times I wanted to set light to him. The plot just doesn't go anywhere and the idea never convinced, I couldn't believe in this vision of the future where everything seems to work but no one seems to know how. Most of the narrative is about ideas, geo-politics and views - presumably Robert Llewellyn's - on the perfect society and the nature of utopia, there really isn't much plot beyond this discourse. Robert Llewellyn's voice comes across strongly as Gavin, the man thrown out of time, but - much as I like Robert Llewellyn, the writing is just not good.
News from Gardenia is a great idea. It starts out fairly readable but quickly becomes bogged down in a mire of muddy ideas. It ends up more manifesto than novel and soon becomes dreadfully tedious.
I love Robert Llewellyn, I loved the premise, I desperately wanted to love the book but sadly, I couldn't.
Unfortunately, News from Gardenia doesn't do justice to the boldness of the idea. The style is too self-conscious in its attempts to amuse. The story is repetitive and so is the dialogue, by the end of the book, Gavin had told us his love was SO beautiful, how he wanted to grab her and hold her SO many times I wanted to set light to him. The plot just doesn't go anywhere and the idea never convinced, I couldn't believe in this vision of the future where everything seems to work but no one seems to know how. Most of the narrative is about ideas, geo-politics and views - presumably Robert Llewellyn's - on the perfect society and the nature of utopia, there really isn't much plot beyond this discourse. Robert Llewellyn's voice comes across strongly as Gavin, the man thrown out of time, but - much as I like Robert Llewellyn, the writing is just not good.
News from Gardenia is a great idea. It starts out fairly readable but quickly becomes bogged down in a mire of muddy ideas. It ends up more manifesto than novel and soon becomes dreadfully tedious.
I love Robert Llewellyn, I loved the premise, I desperately wanted to love the book but sadly, I couldn't.
July 31, 2013
Robert Llewellyn is very outspoken regarding alternative energy, so when I saw the plot of this book I expected there to be points where he laboured his anti fossil fuels message so much that it distracted from the story. Thankfully this isn't the case.
A very well written yarn that is definitely more about the story than the writing- in some sections he could have been writing in broken english, the story is gripping enough that it really wouldn't matter. The story is about Gavin, who has an argument with his wife and storms off in his light aircraft only to find himself jumped 200 years into the future- a near utopian post government, post money future in which the whole of Britain has been planted with trees and gardens.
The only issue I have with the book is that some questions are concisely answered, but more important ones are not. If there were to be a conventional sequel this would not be an issue, but to leave so much of the world unanswered seems a tragedy, especially a world so well researched and well planned out as the one painted here. It is only a minor gripe though, as the story is strong enough to get you to a conclusion and the main character is a very normal and quite neurotic man, but is likable and fully fleshed out- any characters that seem a bit flat can be explained by the first person narration coming, as it does, from quite an insular character.
If you like alternative futures, I heartily recommend Bobbyllew's book- some of the science may be a bit ropey but a lot of love has gone into it and it shows
A very well written yarn that is definitely more about the story than the writing- in some sections he could have been writing in broken english, the story is gripping enough that it really wouldn't matter. The story is about Gavin, who has an argument with his wife and storms off in his light aircraft only to find himself jumped 200 years into the future- a near utopian post government, post money future in which the whole of Britain has been planted with trees and gardens.
The only issue I have with the book is that some questions are concisely answered, but more important ones are not. If there were to be a conventional sequel this would not be an issue, but to leave so much of the world unanswered seems a tragedy, especially a world so well researched and well planned out as the one painted here. It is only a minor gripe though, as the story is strong enough to get you to a conclusion and the main character is a very normal and quite neurotic man, but is likable and fully fleshed out- any characters that seem a bit flat can be explained by the first person narration coming, as it does, from quite an insular character.
If you like alternative futures, I heartily recommend Bobbyllew's book- some of the science may be a bit ropey but a lot of love has gone into it and it shows
January 12, 2016
I'll start by showing off: Robert Llewellyn himself signed my copy at Cardiff Comic Con 2013.
A solid, entertaining novel. A nice read, but not for everyone. It's utopian science fiction. The book is heavily based on technology, so if you have no interest in it whatsoever then do not even bother with this story.
I was slightly disappointed with the story. I enjoyed the first half of the book; the unfolding of an interesting and exciting plot, a number of likable characters and an overall enjoyable theme. The second half was the let down; it seemed very rushed and as I was almost done, I realised not much had actually happened since the big event early on in the book. As an extra point, I found a number of occasions where something would be described and then described in the same way again later in a sentence - a rough example: 'The short journey was brief'.
Another point I must mention is the main character (Gavin). The whole book is written from his perspective. I tried my best to like him, but couldn't get my head around him and his attitude. I'm not sure if Robert Llewellyn (the author) meant for him to be liked, but surely he should have been easy to like. I didn't dislike Gavin, but found myself really annoyed by some of the things he did or said.
I really am eager to find out what happens next, so will be reading the next book in what is to be a trilogy.
A solid, entertaining novel. A nice read, but not for everyone. It's utopian science fiction. The book is heavily based on technology, so if you have no interest in it whatsoever then do not even bother with this story.
I was slightly disappointed with the story. I enjoyed the first half of the book; the unfolding of an interesting and exciting plot, a number of likable characters and an overall enjoyable theme. The second half was the let down; it seemed very rushed and as I was almost done, I realised not much had actually happened since the big event early on in the book. As an extra point, I found a number of occasions where something would be described and then described in the same way again later in a sentence - a rough example: 'The short journey was brief'.
Another point I must mention is the main character (Gavin). The whole book is written from his perspective. I tried my best to like him, but couldn't get my head around him and his attitude. I'm not sure if Robert Llewellyn (the author) meant for him to be liked, but surely he should have been easy to like. I didn't dislike Gavin, but found myself really annoyed by some of the things he did or said.
I really am eager to find out what happens next, so will be reading the next book in what is to be a trilogy.
November 29, 2015
The premise of the book is notable in itself: actual *utopian* SF, which is a rarity in today's world of Hunger Gameses and Maze Runners (and, well, actual world politics). A regular middle-class Englishman ends up two hundred years in the future, in a green and strangely empty land known as Gardenia. He learns about their technology, their social structure, and even gets to tour around different parts of the world to discover what things are like. It's a pretty straightforward plot, but it's really refreshing to have a vision of a possible future where things seem to work out okay. It's perhaps a little too short - we only get glimpses of the wider world, and there are darker and more troubling things hinted at - but maybe that's the point. Llewellyn says his main inspiration was the utopian socialist News From Nowhere, but it also has things in common with political SF of the 60s and 70s in the way the protagonist wanders from vista to vista. There are two more in the series, apparently looking at other "what-if" futures, so I'd be interested to see where else we might end up.
October 5, 2012
"I was in a room with what looked like normal human beings, but things were steadily and relentlessly going out of whack."
The opening of this book was quite intriguing; I'd heard an audio reading of the first chapter a few months ago and so was glad to give it a go. The writing is lightly amusing, Llewellyn has a style that is both comfortable, informative and funny.
"It sounded like the whole system I’d known, in fact the whole country, had broken down into some sort of anarchist semi-medieval subsistence-farming backwater."
This, of course, is a fairly accurate review of where the main character finds himself, and the technological and social innovations that he learns about are really quite interesting to read about. I don't know if I'd enjoy living in such an environment, and the characters lack depth here, but I enjoyed it all the same.
Knock half a star off for the ending, too, which I felt was the weakest part of the book.
The opening of this book was quite intriguing; I'd heard an audio reading of the first chapter a few months ago and so was glad to give it a go. The writing is lightly amusing, Llewellyn has a style that is both comfortable, informative and funny.
"It sounded like the whole system I’d known, in fact the whole country, had broken down into some sort of anarchist semi-medieval subsistence-farming backwater."
This, of course, is a fairly accurate review of where the main character finds himself, and the technological and social innovations that he learns about are really quite interesting to read about. I don't know if I'd enjoy living in such an environment, and the characters lack depth here, but I enjoyed it all the same.
Knock half a star off for the ending, too, which I felt was the weakest part of the book.
May 29, 2013
I bought this after seeing Robert talk at the "Unbound meets Catalyst Club" event as part of the 2013 Brighton Festival. The way he described the sequel made me interested in reading this book. I've since registered as a subscriber of the next book News From the Squares.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I was engrossed in the world he describes and I love the near-future-ness of the technology he describes. As he said in his talk, it's all possible, nothing is conjured up, some of it is stretched to logical (or otherwise) conclusions but nothing is invented by him I'm currently also reading Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling and find this book gives me a better framework to read Shaping Things from. Which is odd. But something about Gardenia has captured my imagination. It's been a while since I found myself comparing a fictional world with my world. I like it. More please.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I was engrossed in the world he describes and I love the near-future-ness of the technology he describes. As he said in his talk, it's all possible, nothing is conjured up, some of it is stretched to logical (or otherwise) conclusions but nothing is invented by him I'm currently also reading Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling and find this book gives me a better framework to read Shaping Things from. Which is odd. But something about Gardenia has captured my imagination. It's been a while since I found myself comparing a fictional world with my world. I like it. More please.
April 8, 2015
A wonderfully realised utopia story set some 200 years in the future where Britain has lead the way from excessive consumerist capitalism to pastoral gardening (hence Gardenia).
Reading this after The Secret Agent shows anarchism in a positive light - there is no law or government, and people just seem to "Do The Right Thing". My underlying feeling, highlighted by the main character's trip to still hustling and bustling Beijing and Mumbai, is that the ageing population of Gardenia no longer have that drive and ambition to change, or take over, the world. Instead they are content to live a quieter life in an arts and crafts style. For Gavin this is how he would like to retire.
This is the first book in a trilogy so it is no surprise Gavin leaves Gardenia by the end.
Reading this after The Secret Agent shows anarchism in a positive light - there is no law or government, and people just seem to "Do The Right Thing". My underlying feeling, highlighted by the main character's trip to still hustling and bustling Beijing and Mumbai, is that the ageing population of Gardenia no longer have that drive and ambition to change, or take over, the world. Instead they are content to live a quieter life in an arts and crafts style. For Gavin this is how he would like to retire.
This is the first book in a trilogy so it is no surprise Gavin leaves Gardenia by the end.
April 20, 2015
I've got to be honest, I was expecting a lot more. Not a lot happened. The protagonist, Gavin did a few things, but nothing exciting. I would have been happier with a longer book, and a much more thrilling story. The ending was slightly abrupt, which is somewhat frustrating; however, it does leave opportunity for a sequel. The concept of the novel was great, however, and I suppose it makes you think, like all futuristic novels. I would recommend it, with hesitation though. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either.
July 15, 2016
Really enjoyed reading this book. It's an easy read an engaging story.
I follow the author online (not in a stalkerish way) and I have to say I could very much hear his voice in the central character, and I think the did add an authenticity to what I was reading.
I would have like to have known a little more about this world, I do feel that the end was very abrupt. I know it's a trilogy, and from what I can ascertain Gavin (the main character) goes to different worlds in each one. Here's hoping that he end up back in Gardenia before the series ends.
I follow the author online (not in a stalkerish way) and I have to say I could very much hear his voice in the central character, and I think the did add an authenticity to what I was reading.
I would have like to have known a little more about this world, I do feel that the end was very abrupt. I know it's a trilogy, and from what I can ascertain Gavin (the main character) goes to different worlds in each one. Here's hoping that he end up back in Gardenia before the series ends.
August 24, 2013
This book really opened my eyes to the future. There is a lot we are going to face in our lifetimes that is going to completely change how we live but hardly anyone is preparing or even talking about it. I found the main character a bit abrasive and heartless when it came to his relationships particularly in regards to his wife. However that served to make him seem all the more genuine.
Thanks Bobby, really made me think.
Thanks Bobby, really made me think.
May 5, 2015
As something that paints a portrait of a utopian future, it works well enough. The problem with the book is that it has no real, discernable plot. A man goes to the future, then he travels around and looks at stuff. There's no conflict, no resolution, just sight-seeing. I have yet to read the next book in the series, _News from the Squares_, and I'm hoping there will be something more than just world-building when I get to that one.
February 20, 2016
i see that this book has been rated any where between one star and five, such a contrast but I guess its all according to one's point of view and how the book is regarded. I did enjoy it and wanted to know if and how Gavin got back to his real time, so actually read the book quite quickly. as it was an inconclusive end, I saw that there is a sequel book so I took a peak at the precis of that, and thus News from Gardenia isn't the end
April 30, 2012
Delightfully original view of the future where our hero is beset with a strange new world. A world that is divided into non-economic countries, declining major economic powers like China and other disparite places. He's trying to find links to his past or could it be his possible future? Never can tell in sci-fi :)
August 8, 2012
I was really rather enjoying the tale, and then it was over. By that I mean, it didn't end so much as it just stopped. Having done some poking around on Google, I discovered that my Kindle edition wasn't actually missing any chapters (as I first thought), it just ends the way it ends. Ah, well - it certainly leaves open the possibility of a sequel, at least.
November 9, 2012
I quite enjoyed this book. I think Robert has showed us his hope for the future in this novel :) This futuristic utopia could be a wonderful place to live; albeit a tad confusing at times. One thing I didn't like was how suddenly the book ended; however if this was the plan, to release a sequel, then I suppose it's okay.
February 26, 2013
A great novel about the future where humans have not wiped themselves and all other live off the planet. An insight into what we need may need to do to ensure the future of our race. Brilliantly written, beautifully bound. The sequel is available to pre-order here http://unbound.co.uk/books/news-from-...
December 29, 2014
The story of a man who gets taken to the future and talks a lot to the people there to find out how utopia came to be. If it had been the story of the founding of the utopia rather than the story of talking about the founding of utopia it might have been a better book, but really, just talking about it, Meh.
Quite readable and pleasant, but I somehow expected something better.
Quite readable and pleasant, but I somehow expected something better.
June 9, 2014
I had been looking forward to reading this for quite a long time, but sadly was a bit disappointed with it. For a book which was set in a supposedly utopian technology-free future, the language was incredibly technology-obsessed. I also found the writing style fairly naive, but maybe that was intentional. Don't think I will be reading the sequel.
January 7, 2015
A good old fashioned utopia. You don't see many of them these days. Gavin is, as has been said in other reviews, a bit of a jerk but by the end of the book he is showing signs of improvement. Where will the tether take him next? My main quibble is that the space pods as described make no sense. Perhaps the author will give a fuller explanation elsewhere.
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