Steady Robbo

SURREY HILLS 2046. THE NOOSE IS TIGHTENING, AND IT'S RENDERED IN DULUX 'TRANQUIL OWL' GREY.

Alistair Paisley is a man of simple, elite tastes: 12G mobile coverage, 20 MW renewable energy suites, and the comforting hum of a BaldEagle-05 anti-missile system protecting his four-car reinforced pods. He's successfully navigated the bankruptcy of social media and the "NPC" moribundity of his peers, only to find himself commuted to life imprisonment without parole in a neoclassical-space bunker-dome with a pregnant wife and a bossy de-facto nanny.

But while Alistair is measuring the morphology of his sperm in a dingy Box Hill clinic, a dark cloud is rising over the horizon. And it's wearing a beard.

Robbo-the arsonist, the welfare fraudster, and the "Integrated Warrior A-Lion"-has failed upward into the cultural zeitgeist. From streaking at the MCG under the gaze of Prime Minister Max Gawn to topping the charts as a bushranger-rock sensation, Robbo is the "spiritual portent" Alistair can't escape. He's the ghost in the machine, the traces of carrot in the beard of the future, and the man who turned Alistair's death sentence into a Top 50 single.

From the high-tech surveillance of the AO Ballpark to the "snoozalarium" of Carols by Candlelight, Zavier Thorne delivers a clinical, cynical, and devastatingly funny autopsy of the mid-2040s. It's a world where drones hunt for streakers, AI manages your overpayments, and the only thing more dangerous than an Iranian kamikaze drone is a life coach with a trademarked catchphrase.

Book 11 of the Another Day in Paradise Lost Archive.

If you're ready to defend your bunker-dome, ignore your antenatal coach, and find a guiding star through a web of communication satellites, it's time to face the future. Steady, Robbo.