Pages: 189
Released On: 23/04/2023
Earth’s population:
1700: 6.0 x 10^8
1900: 1.65 × 10^9
2000: 6.14 x 10^9
2100: 1.087 x 10^10
2700: 3.15 x 10^5
2878: 0
24800: 1.4 x 10^2
History repeats itself, unless it prevents itself. Estranged parent and child civilizations collide. Who will win the fight for Planet B?
*****
Thanks to Matt for gifting me a copy of his book in return for an honest review.
For such a short book, this pulls a serious punch. It gives you more to think about than some books double the lengths have.
Real life is becoming scarily like this book. It’s partly set on Earth, and partly sent on Panacea (a habitable planet) roughly 22,000 years later. It looks at what humanity did to require a planet B, and why we shouldn’t be putting all our hopes on a planet B, or C, or even D, because of our mess-ups. We should take ownership of them, and learn from them, so that future generations still have Planet A to call home.
It ponders over the great AI debate a well, a debater we are wading into more and more everyday, and it is terrifying. Robots need no salary, no food or drink, no rest breaks, they’re not plagued by boredom, tiredness, hunger, stress, anger – why wouldn’t you use robots instead of humans? But that’s when humanity gets a bit complicated. We have ways of thinking and working that no robot will ever match and that is our strength.
Whether it was intentional or not – I can’t imagine it wasn’t – but the supercontinent we once had on Earth was called Pangaea, and the planet in this book is called Panacea. Surely that’s not a coincidence. It is very cleverly used whatever.
My one slight criticism is I wish there were more scenes set on Panacea, especially with the ‘average Joe’. There are scenes set on the planet looking at high-up official characters. But I wanted to explore the everyday experience on the planet, from the people to the animals to the jobs to the environment. It whetted my appetite and I just wish for slightly more.
Will there be a sequel? It ends quite abruptly. I mean, it works as an ending, it’s good, but it also leaves some questions answered and I feel there’s more to it and I want to continue on this journey.
Books By Your Bedside 