Magnus Mills lives in a pointless world full of people giving themselves busywork, always working but achieving nothing.
In Explorers of the New Century two groups of men arrive at a shore. One group goes one way, the other goes another way.
They’re travelling towards the agreed furthest point from civilisation, testing a theory about an undiscovered paradise, just men travelling with their mules.
Both groups are quasi-military, they have leaders and a strong sense of order. Also a strong sense of class, with the officers separate from the working joe soaps. The working men moan and take their few pleasures in small physical comforts.
Civilisation consists in denying your real desires and keeping yourself occupied.
There’s a twist in the middle of this book that took me completely by surprise and turned a story about civilisation into one about bigotry and racism. The mental image I’d built up was destroyed and I had to build a whole new one with different assumptions. It was thoroughly unsettling.
I’ve read two of his other books (The Restraint of Beasts and The Scheme for Full Employment) and they both have this atmosphere of repetition and meaninglessness.
He’s great. I love Magnus Mills. He writes beautifully and he’s very funny. This is an excellent book.
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