The Sea and Summer

"His most powerful novel ... George Turner belongs to the world" - Gene Wolfe

"The best didactic novel I've read since The Dispossessed" - Joe Haldeman

"This book still sticks within my memory more than a decade after reading it" - Goodreads Reviewer

Francis Conway is Swill - one of the 90%. Swill must subsist on the inadequate charities of the state. In the year 2041, life is already difficult and is rapidly becoming impossible for young Francis and his people. Government corruption, wilful ignorance, and the natural world have all conspired to turn Swill homes into watery tombs. Now the young boy must find a way to escape the approaching tide of disaster.

THE SEA AND SUMMER, published in the US as THE DROWNING TOWERS, is George Turner's masterful exploration of the effects of climate change in the not-too-distant future. Comparable to J.G. Ballard's THE DROWNED WORLD, it was shortlisted for the NEBULA AWARD and won the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD.