A challenging British dystopia in which, in a near post economic catastrophe Lewes, a small British town in the South Downs, is ruled by the Process, an impenetrable algorithm whch closely controls people's lives in an Orwell-like fashion. Enter a manufactured soldier from World War One whose role is both a catalyst and destructive in unravelling the true nature of the appointed local Bailiff, his wife and other's lives. Both bucolic and an oppressive love story set against the background of an enigmatic dictatorship of sorts, this tale of reality askew is also a powerful meditation on the nature of war, the misuse of technology and the grit and determination of the common man. Thoughtful, at times frustrating but well worth the final reward, and stylically elegant, a different kind of science fiction. ~ Maxim Jakubowski
'Matthew de Abaitua has written a novel about employment, about daily labour, about the dignity or otherwise of the working individual. If Then is a love story, the history of a marriage, a topical meditation on the end of capitalism; best of all, it is a bone-deep, blood-sweet British fantasy, naive and ingenious as William Morris and as warpedly nostalgic as Richard Jeffries' After London.' Simon Ings, author of Wolves
Author
About Matthew De Abaitua
Matthew De Abaitua was born in Liverpool in 1971. After graduating from the University of East Anglia Creative Writing MA studying under Malcolm Bradbury, he lived and worked as Will Self’s amanuensis in a remote cottage in Suffolk. His first novel The Red Men (Snowbooks 2007, Gollancz ebook 2013) was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award. He currently lectures on Creative Writing at Brunel University and Writing Science Fiction at the University of Essex.
