Gridlock

Gridlock Too many cars and not enough space equals gridlock. Gridlock is when a city dies. Killed in the name of freedom. Killed in the name of oil and steel. Choked on carbon monoxide and strangled with a pair of fluffy dice. How did it come to this? How did the ultimate freedom machine end up paralysing us all? How did we end up driving to our own funeral, in somebody else’s gravy train? Deborah and Geoffrey know, but they have transport problems of their own, and anyway, whoever it was that murdered the city can just as easily murder them. Chart Throb Chart ThrobThe ultimate pop quest. Ninety five thousand hopefuls. Three judges. Just one winner. And that’s Calvin Simms, the genius behind the show. Calvin always wins because Calvin writes the rules. But this year, as he sits smugly in judgement upon the mingers, clingers and blingers whom he has pre-selected in his carefully scripted ’search’ for a star, he has no idea that the rules are changing. The ’real’ is about to be put back into ’reality’ television and Calvin and his fellow judges (the nation’s favourite mum and the other bloke) are about to becomeex- factors themselves. Chart Throb. One winner. A whole bunch of losers Blind Faith Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where ’sharing’ is valued above all, and privacy is considered a dangerous perversion. Trafford wouldn’t call himself a rebel, but he’s daring to be different, to stand out from the crowd. In his own small ways, he wants to push against the system. But in this world, uniformity is everything. And even tiny defiances won’t go unnoticed. Ben Elton’s dark, savagely comic novel imagines a post-apocalyptic society where religious intolerance combines with a sex-obsessed, utterly egocentric culture. In this world, nakedness is modesty, independent thought subversive, and ignorance is wisdom. A chilling vision of what’s to come?Or something rather closer to home? -------------------------------------- Proofed and heavily corrected 2006. No attempt made to reinstate any of the numerous italics appearing in the hard copy original. -------------------------------------- First published in Great Britain by Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd 1991. Published by Sphere Books Ltd 1992. Reprinted by Warner Books 1993. Reprinted 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000.