Bothy

Bothies were old stone buildings that housed unmarried agricultural workers across the east of Scotland many years ago. I guess they were like the student digs of today but extremely rough and ready. My father was an agricultural worker and saw the last days of the bothies in Scotland. My new book is set in a post-apocalyptic nearish future and envisions conflict between two isolated agricultural communities. One of these communities (located in the Strathmore Valley of Scotland) has reverted to the bothy system of communal living, lives anarchistically and farms in harmony with nature. The other community is more like we recognise today and is set in Aberdeen and its surrounds. Repeated aggression and attempted land acquisitions from Aberdeen see an unstable man known only as Laddie travel to Aberdeen to carry out an act of revenge that starts an all out war between the two communities. Three women, each dealing with the death of someone they love, are sucked into the war and the final part of the book sees them undertake an assassination to shoot the leader of the Aberdeen community. The genres covered by this book are: Sci-fi, dystopia, pulp, action and adventure, satire. Themes include: Work automation and its impact on societal and political structure; modern agriculture and the environment; the decline of Scottish agricultural communities; western capitalist society as a constraint on individual potential; extreme psychological stress as a transformative force; psychology of suicide and suicide’s impact on others; authoritarianism and the rise of the superhero; politics of language; global warming and migration; gender assumptions; racism; beautiful women who fight with their fists; beautiful men with arm cannons; robots with big guns; robots ramming tower blocks; gunplay; knifeplay; love; sex; romance; drugs; rape; revenge; The Western; pulp literature; mental health and creativity; snooker; football; war and PTSD. Quite a bit of the book is written in Scots dialect and I take the approach of introducing the location, themes, and characters in the book slowly and with restraint. It is therefore probably not an easy read for most English Language readers. But on their other hand there is lots of kick-ass action and fun that can be enjoyed on a superficial level.