Sophia

Sophia has just enjoyed a cup of coffee in the university canteen with her close friend Cathy when her laptop screen becomes infested with a swarm of bee-like insects; unknown to her this is the signal that her first visit from the voice, an extra-terrestrial agent, is about to take place. The voice calmly asks her to take on the role of diverting humanity away from its present self-destructive course which, if left unchanged, will lead swiftly to the sixth extinction. Sophia is shocked by the enormity of the request, and challenges the voice about why she has been chosen, and whether she is up to the job, but eventually reluctantly accepts, having consulted at length with her boyfriend Matt. The story then charts Sophia's life, the internal struggles she faces, and her multiple conversations with the voice, her mentor, as she sets up Domum amid growing opposition; she is found often in the carefully depicted domestic settings of her and Matt's families, where there are many moments of high comedy. In parallel a number of paranormal events occur around the world; examples are lightbox advertisements changing their messaging to stark reminders of the damage being reeked by humanity, collective suicide by puffins in Iceland whose older members plunge themselves into the caldera of a volcano, apparently in protest at the industrial fishing of sand eels, and bees deciding en masse to leave their hives in Patagonia to escape to wilder terrain unspoilt by farming. These incidents shock most people into thinking seriously about the wellbeing of the planet, but with the consequence that they usually divide into one of two camps, the survivalists and the hedonists. Some of the key characters in the book are Mark, an advertising agent with whom Sophia gradually falls in love, Boghilder, an Icelandic barmaid with a hilarious and sensuous humour, and Sir Carl Layman, her deadly opponent who founds Project Guillotine in order to dispose once and for all of Domum and Sofia. The denouement happens when the prime minister, a close friend of Sir Carl, finds that even members of her own party cannot accept her decision to label Domum as a proscribed terrorist organisation; this leads to her defeat on a vote of confidence, a general election, and at the end of a long night of waiting, a victory for the coalition of opposition parties who support Domum. But Sophie is left wondering where the seismic forces she has unleashed are going to settle as time moves forward.