Nicolas Debandt Marc-Antoine Fardin

I briefly met Nicolas Debandt back in 2019 at the French festival Les Imaginales, in Épinal. Next to this novel, 'Nos altermondes', he's written a few others. Of those, this novel caught most my interest, as I wanted to see how Mr Debandt would treat the subject in a fictional setting. While dystopian novels don't contribute to a happy reading experience, they can make you think about the world today. It helps, however, if the story is also attractive and well-written.

Mr Debandt has a very accessible and fluent style, which makes it hard to put the book down. The story itself is pretty good in that respect. The world has undergone a serious ecological disaster. Two continents will suffer greatly, one more than the other. There is no more potable water, therefore it has to be found on distant planets. Bees no longer exist, so it's up to the people, aided by technological tools, to take their place and see that crops, plants, flowers... continue to flourish (no pun intended).

Meanwhile, a team is active on a distant planet to seek and extract clean, potable water, to transport it back to Earth. On Earth, however, there are many refugees, victims of a self-centred business man whose business has been blown up... mysteriously. (He ordered it, in fact, like one would do to fool insurance and so obtain a quick-win.) So he and many others had to find a new home in Europe, where our business man would soon obtain political influence and a new chance to revive his business, therefore helping the population. Of course, cunning and sly as he was, it would be on his conditions. You can see this as the kind of lobbying that occurs often in today's society, on political, economic, military and other levels.

This turn-around would create a new kind of society... to the detriment of those less fortunate. The planet where the other team was hard at work would come to play a vital role in the end process, would show a more humane approach to the environmental problems.

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'Nos altermondes' offers an entertaining, accessible intermezzo, makes you think about the today's situation regarding the environment, migration, etc. On the other hand, I thought some events could use more elaboration, as is the case for the ending, which unfolded a bit too rapidly, too predictably.

Also, the story revolves more about political games and migration than how the world really deals with the absence of bees, of potable water, of more effective solutions whilst remaining on Earth. Which brings me back to what I mentioned above: more elaboration.… (mehr)