WINTER GARDEN
In the context of global warming, a conflict has arisen in Europe between specialist engineers flying the flag of the Consortium and eco-terrorist groups of the Cooperative. This war has now lasted for nearly 20 years, following an incident called “the crime of the century”. Each camp has developed its own weapons: robot animals for the engineers, mechanical plants for the ecologists.
The story is about a band of Cossack smugglers who live by salvaging spare parts from battles and whose philosophy can be summed up thus: “We are smugglers and refuse to belong to any particular camp. It is our choice to piss everyone off.”
One night, they come upon a stranger who has lost his memory and is behaving very oddly. This chance discovery will make them cross Europe in search of both the past and the green shoots of the future.
Olivier Paquet is one of those rare authors of science fiction who has chosen to use Europe as his field of operation for his novels; he draws on grand themes from Greek tragedy and a political vision based on violence, but still there is hope for a renaissance.