Useful Idiots

Jan Mark's latest novel is aimed at the young adult market, but the themes and ideas that it contains are equally suited to adult readers.

Useful Idiots is set in the 23^rd Century. Climate change has affected the British Isles, where vast areas of land lie under water. The Rhine Delta Islands, as they are now called, have become part of a European federation, its anodyne cities inhabited by citizens who lead healthy and long lives, thanks to the eradication of illness. Outside the cities, however, in fen country surrounded by miles of peat bog (known as the Moss), live the Aboriginal Inglish people (or Oysters as they are disparagingly called), a culture that jealously guards its old-fashioned customs at the expense of longer lifespans and smoother skin.

Times have also changed in the academic world, where the study of history and archaeology is viewed with deep suspicion, and is undertaken only by a few small, poorly funded, university departments. When a storm uncovers a human skull on Parizo Beach, Merrick Korda and his surly boss Rémy Turcat jump at the chance of exacavating, but swiftly find themselves drawn into a political storm. Accused of working on  aboriginal land without permission, the archaeology department is closed down, but Merrick is convinced there is more to these wranglings than meets the eye. His investigations take him deep into the Moss, where he learns about the Inglish way of life and death, and the shocking reason for the Aboriginals' strange nickname.

Like the best science fiction writers, Mark has taken a long look at the present before positing her vision of the future. She avoids the future-shock of Blade Runner and the totalitarianism of Orwell's 1984, constructing instead a bland, and at times inefficient, world where technology has made life easier and longer but not necessarily better. The Inglish, by contrast, have retained a rural, twentieth-century, lifestyle at the expense of modern convenience, where ancestry informs their everyday lives. Jan Mark questions the validity of progress over tradition, but also makes us think again about the right of 'different' cultures to live as they choose.

The exploitation of the past by the present (or in this case, the future) provides the backdrop for Merrick's investigations. Archaeology, as a subject that relies upon limited physical evidence to make conjectures about past societies, has been, and always will be, prone to manipulation by academics and politicians alike. In the pan-European state of the future, where conformity is all, evidence of diversity will be unacceptable and as a result will be suppressed.

These are thought-provoking and provocative ideas, entirely relevant to the ongoing debate about Britain's place in the world, and the rights of indigenous peoples to self-government. Lest I make it sound too po-faced, however, Useful Idiots is a cracking story, with great characterisation; it will keep you guessing right up until the end.