Aerth – Book Review
Aerth, by Deborah Tomkins, January 2025. Weatherglass Books, ISBN: 9781739570781, 180 pages. RRP: £10.99
A tale of two planets. Two planets that are remarkably like Earth. Two planets called Aerth and Urth, orbiting on opposite sides of the sun, neither able to see the other. Both planets face potential catastrophic climate change: Aerth is entering a mini ice age, while Urth is rapidly heating up. Each planet has adapted to their respective crises in different ways.
The story begins on Aerth. Here the population is much diminished, owing to successive waves of a pandemic, and perhaps this has allowed for a radical societal reset. The economy is no longer based on the exchange of money. Instead daily life is organised around the principle of ‘Do no harm.’ This requires everyone to think before they act, to seek a common consensus, and to work together cooperatively. This is a way of life that promotes the value of ‘listening to the heart’. Theirs is primarily an agrarian culture where people’s needs are more often met by the community than by the individual and where each life is cherished and nature is respected. But this is no paradise.
Through the eyes of Marcus, the protagonist of this story, we see that Aerth is not a world devoid of pain and suffering. Rather it is a place of conflicted ideals, unfulfilled dreams and self-sacrifice.
Remarkably Marcus gets the opportunity to travel, via Mars (where a prototype colony is being established) to Urth. Urth has taken an alternative approach to coping with crisis; one where money and fame call the shots. It is a solution not dissimilar to that which is still being tried here on Earth!
On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit-filled Peter quotes to the crowd the words of the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”
As Christians we are called to dream dreams and to envisage different ways of living. This book, chosen by Ali Smith as the winner of Weatherglass Books’ Inaugural Novella Prize, will certainly spark us into imagining a better future for planet Earth.
Judith Russenberger
The Wilder Path, also by Deborah Tomkins, will be reviewed in our next issue.
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