I've just completed a novel titled No Tomorrow featuring an out of work computer scientist who is trying to make the ultimate truth about climate change documentary.
The novel was inspired by the poor job Martin Durkin did of The Great Global Warming Swindle which was meant to debunk conventional climate change science, but was easily picked apart by scientists. What if the case was weak as the “sceptics” claim but no one was presenting their side clearly? Doing that properly would be a good documentary.
The trouble is, this is a fast-moving area. The politics is moving rapidly. Al Gore and the IPPC were awarded a Nobel. Climate change has moved to centre-stage in the Australian federal election called for 24 November 2007.
So rather than make the documentary, I wrote a novel about someone trying to make one. I had to do a fair fraction of the research that would have had to go into the documentary, but saved on all the travel time (and cost).
I had to make up people and their lives, but that was fun. I have no way of knowing if the real scientists on both sides of the debate would have behaved as I had them in the book. But that's fiction for you. At least I did make a good attempt at understanding the science which is more than moth fiction authors (aka journalists) bother with.
The novel is set in places I've lived in or visited: Brisbane, Boston, New York, Sydney, Sunshine Coast (near Brisbane), Berkeley, San Francisco and Stanford. It includes a nice slice of human interest so the science will not be too boring for the uninitiated. I also include a few slugs of real hard-core computer science since usually this stuff is watered down or just plain wrong.
Check out the novel's google groups site for more.
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