#BookshelfSpotlight -‘Wolf Country’ by Tunde Farrand

About the book…

London, 2050. The socio-economic crisis of recent decades is over and consumerism is thriving.

Ownership of land outside the city is the preserve of a tiny elite, and the rest of the population must spend to earn a Right to Reside. Ageing has been abolished thanks to a radical new
approach, replacing retirement with blissful euthanasia at a Dignitorium.

When architect Philip goes missing, his wife Alice risks losing her home and her status, and begins to question the society in which she was raised.

Her search for him uncovers some horrifying truths about the fate of her own family and the reality behind the new social order.

Available in paperback NOW !

‘Wolf Country’ by Tunde Farrand is published by Eye /Lightning Books on the 14th February 2019.

*All books ordered on the Eye Books site during August using code RACHELREADIT will have 30% discount as well as free shipping!*

In the light of recent announcements regarding the retirement age of UK workers (rising to 75 , which is older than many counties’ life expectancies,basically meaning we will be worked to death) this dystopian debut novel is viewed in an altogether more chilling light.

Set in the year 2050, a new system is in place for maximising the earning potential of all citizens. No one drives cars anymore(except the mysterious ‘The Owners’. Everyone else travels on monorails, no exceptions. Society is divided into High ,Mid-, and Low-Spenders, with social mobility possible, but also meaning that you can go down, as well as up…

This is what first person narrator Alice finds out, when her husband disappears. People are implanted with ‘trackers’, and as such , there are only 3 reasons why trackers cease to work, as Phillip’s does. They are sent to ‘The Zone’ (an area beyind a brick wall sepaerating society from those who have not turned a profit for 10 years or more, or criminals), they have it removed on enetering ‘The Dignitorium'( a home for the elderly after they stop being useful and productive) or the person is dead. Without energy to feed the tracker, it ceases to work.

Officers turn up to Alice’s house requesting her to remove all her personal belongings as she no longer needs such a big home-downgraded in one swoop from almost achieving High Spender level to widow and single person accomodation.

It is a society where ‘The Globe’ is responsible for disseminating the news, offciers are in charge of social standing and anyone beyond the wall is seen as unworthy and unwanted. This is where Philip’s father,Antonio, lives, and maintains a self-sufficient community.

Philip was an architect responsible for the construction of ‘Paradise’, a new High Spender area which meant evicting Low-Spender people, demolishing their homes and resulted in many residents freezing to death or being savaged by the citizens of the Zone. An explosion at the opening ceremony for ‘Paradise’ , results in Alice reporting him missing and then finding his tracker has gone off…or has it been turned off?

Did Philip find something out which led to him killing himself?

Was he killed in the explosion or was he the cause of it?

Has his tracker been removed by him or a third party?

Has he gone to live with his father out of guilt? How far will Alice go to find the truth of what happened to her husband-in a society where people are shuffled around like pieces on a playing board for the amusement of those in charge, how far can Alice get before she puts herself in danger?

And what about the circling wolves?

All of these themes mix uneasily in a thriller which is too close to home in this time of limbo when no one has any idea what is ahead of us in this pre-Brexit country, where whispers of food shortages, lack of medication and sanctions are chilling the blood. The ‘Right To Reside’ and dispatch of the elderly in a ‘dignified manner’ is terrfiyingly realistic given the currrent political climate and I can easily visualise a politician reading this and thinking actually, a wall would solve all the lack of prison issues. Just shut them on the other side and let them figure it out for themsleves-survival of the fittest taken to its inescapabel conclusion but also no longer ‘polite society’s fault’.

The demonising of the poor in the media and the focus on their lack of social engagement in terms of being financially viable whilst reinforcing the position of those better off keeps fear of ‘The Other’ alive and kicking. The ‘you are only welcome if you are of a financial benefit to society’ rhetoric is so prescient it’s unfunny. And as for the way we treat the elderly…how long is it before the government decries the cost of keeping those people alive , with no financial gain?

In the case of ‘Wolf Country’, by 2050 this is very much a reality.

All of this is subtly edged into the story from casual mentions of events and memories of earlier days where Alice and her sister Sofia were children at the start of the developing system. Their grandmother refused to go to a Dignitorium and hand over her house to the state, went on the run and hid with her daughter and family until she was finally hunted down.

The officer who comes to instal a tracker and take Grandma away says –

”How can you say you wan things how they were?Mrs King,I agree that you were very fortunate in the old system,but surely you mist be aware of how the majority suffered? How many [eople were denied a decent life,the country bankrupted trying to care for the elderly, the unemployed and sick.Think of the future of your family,think of your granddaughters.”

The sense of social obligation is not rammed home,however, it is not too far a stretch from the times we are living in, to envisage this future nightmare where the individual is completely subjugated to the will of the state, or else they are outcast into a wasteland.

As you read Alice’s narrative, you begin to feel a creeping horror as to the role of her sister in the establishment of this new world order. And the more you read about Philip, the more you hope that in a future such as this one, which is sadly all too easy to believe thanks to any newscast, people will not forget the value of the individual. That this is increasingly being assigned to social class by monetary means is very frightening indeed. It intimates that there is a price that can be levied on the head of each human and also that not all wolves walk on four legs…

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys-althought that seems the wrong word to use-dystopian fiction on the lines of ‘Cull’ by Tanvir Bush, ‘The Warehouse’ by Rob Hart, ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley ,The Running Man’ by Richard Bachman or ‘The Body Snatchers’ by Jack Finney

I also highly recommend these books too, but you might want to read something light in between them. If you think this world is on a course for destruction, all of these books paint all too plausible pictures of a very real potential future.

About the Author

TÜNDE FARRAND was born in Hungary and lived, studied and worked in several countries
before settling in the UK, where she teaches languages. She has an MA in Creative Writing from
Sheffield Hallam University and lives with her husband in Sheffield. Wolf Country is her first
novel.

“A chilling and politically astute dystopia which grips the reader from start to finish. Sci-fi in the
tradition of Wyndham, with characters I really cared about, in a terrifyingly altered world”

Jane Rogers, winner of The Arthur C Clarke Award

Links-http://eye-books.com/

Twitter @EyeAndLightning

@TundeFarrand