Dreamland: An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021

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In the midst of a climate crisis, with rising sea levels and soaring temperatures (up to 50C), Chance's family accept money from a foundation to relocate from appalling conditions in London to the seaside town of Margate, from where her mum, Jas, originated. But, as the seas continue to rise and occasionally inundate parts of the town, the family wage a continued war to survive on benefits. In the midst of this, Chance rescues Franky (Francesca) from a gang of boys and they feel an immediate attraction, which rapidly turns into a relationship. Then a political change comes about and a LandSave project is launched, with local people employed on building infrastructure for the project - until locals realise that what they are actually building is a massive wall, several miles inland. If this is for flood protection, residents are concerned that this means their town is going to be sacrificed to the rising sea levels. As the Government launch their relocation programme, Chance discovers that her family is classed as 'deferred', which means their moving date is not set - apparently indefinitely. Chance discovers that Franky is in fact part of the LandSave project team but even her intervention apparently can't get Chance's family on the relocation list.... A beautiful book: thought-provoking, eerily prescient and very witty.’ Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half

Dreamland | New Humanist Book review: Dreamland | New Humanist

It’s a reflection on where society is heading post covid as the impact of climate change becomes more apparent over time, divisions in society greater as the far right is able to grab more power over a sustained period of time, seeking a solution to over population and economic failures. As I was saying before, I think the best dystopias are really well-judged games of distraction. You’re not always told: this is what’s happening. It’s just happening around you. These two novels are really superb examples of something simultaneously calibrated to the YA audience, and the adult audience. And in the pared-down nature of the story—of it being one girl against these huge world events—something very illuminating and compelling happens. That’s what I’ve tried to do in my book too: there’s a 16-year-old narrator and it’s about her infinitely personal route through huge political and climatic events.I genuinely must say that large chunks of this brilliant book are five star but I struggled with other elements a lot!

Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee By Nina Allan Strange Horizons - Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee By Nina Allan

My only issue with this book was the ending point. Rankin-Gee weaves some beautiful writing into a story that is often harsh and aggressive, and although I can understand the open-ended imagination prompting ending, I am so invested in these characters that it’s a little disappointing to not know a little more. However, I still gave Dreamland 5 stars because the rest of the book deserves it, and I can understand why the ending could be like it was. However, if you’d like to tell me what happens with a certain child, Rosa, please do! Set on the Kent coast, her dystopian novel imagines a terrifying future, disturbingly close to home. Many of the issues she explores are based in fact. Deep-rooted inequality, extreme weather conditions and the implementation of harsh policies against the vulnerable are all recognisably part of the world we live in today. Rankin-Gee underlines this reality by including relevant sources at the end of her novel. Dreamland suggests one possible ending to the bleak trajectory we are on.Perhaps appropriately, Dreamland is published exactly a century after T.S. Eliot sat in a seaside shelter close to Margate railway station and wrote part of The Waste Land: “On Margate Sands/ I can connect /Nothing with nothing./ The broken fingernails of dirty hands./ My people humble people who expect/ Nothing”.

The Best Near-Future Dystopias | Five Books Expert

Theirs is a world lives in tatty hostels and violent neighbourhoods, where school is sometimes open, sometimes not, where social programs start and stop with alarming regularity and where a hard scrabble is the default not the exeception. For all its constantly overlapping transformations Margate endures, bathed in the richness of its light, home to the washed-up, the hopeful, the displaced, the aspirational, the vulnerable, people carried by different tides to this curious corner on the coast. What comes next for Thanet is, as ever, impossible to predict. In her new novel, however, Ramsgate-based author Rosa Rankin-Gee posits a horrifyingly plausible near-future dystopia for Margate, the island, Britain and the world beyond. Additionally, growing up in a coastal town that has never recovered from the impact of international holidays, combined with working in London today, I'd say the book is extremely accurate for the disparity between the capital and the coastal towns experiences. The book is accessible and opens discussions on a very real issue today, where citizens are being encouraged out of London into these commuter towns which don't receive anywhere near as much support. Most of Margate’s shops are boarded up and the Turner Contemporary is a haven for drug users. Pubs open and shut at random, the booze subsidised to the point of being free to keep the locals docile along with the kem.

Exactly. Except it had, like, a single pair of underwear and a can of beans in it. But there was this feeling that something might happen, and you need to be ready. I talked about that before—the teetering feeling of fear and hope and agency… catnip to a young teenager. Dreamland is set in the near future, a dystopian novel that highlights some very real potential threats to the UK and its seaside towns. Chance is our main character, from a poor family suffering in London who are given the seemingly optimistic opportunity to move to Margate and start a new life. The realities of this move drag Chance’s family into a situation that is just as bad as before, but with some added drama too. A content warning for sustained drug use, domestic abuse, suicide and death is definitely needed! They are handled well, but run graphically through the book – so just be aware! 🙂

Dreamland: A warning from Britain’s post-Brexit future Dreamland: A warning from Britain’s post-Brexit future

I’m not an AI scientist, but it feels very convincing to me. The discussion takes the form of instant messaging, kind of like a Gchat transcript, between these two researchers. And it feels very human, very sure-footed the whole way through. According to your research, how far into the future is the Kent coast predicted to be flooded to the extent depicted in Dreamland ?My girlfriend’s the one to speak to about that. She’s a diplomatic advisor to the Marshall Islands, low-lying islands in the Pacific which are an average of 6ft above current sea levels. She says, and for what it’s worth, I entirely agree with her: “We have to stay optimistic. Failure is not an option, because mass devastation is the alternative. Those on the frontlines of climate crisis fight in every forum for this. Ultimately we can’t let interests of a few cause destruction for so many.” You have to hope, and you have to fight. Set in what could be a future not so far in the future,it starts with a struggling mother and her two kids relocating to Margate. Mark: Can you say a few words about how the elements, themes and locations in Dreamland came together, and how Chance came into view as the main protagonist and narrator.