"In volume two of the Segmented World series, Methuen Pryce has arrived with his wife and daughter on the remote Caribbean island of Phillips Cay.
It is 2050.
He is there to lead a Project – devised by the tech giant Allied Answers – aimed at creating a new type of sustainable society, in a world re-shaped by overpopulation, rising pollution and depleted resources.
On the quayside, he discovers an ‘AI gift’ from Nick O’Grady, the founder of Allied. ‘That will help you on your Way’, an attached note reads – referring to Methuen’s novel approach to implementing the Project Plan.
But was the Plan designed to accommodate the influx of thirty boats in the bay, filled with people desperate to gain admittance?
And how will the much-admired general manager of the former holiday resort react to the wave of changes being imposed on him?
Moreover, what can Methuen do when among the team of professionals brought in to assist him, he finds some who seem to oppose his authority?
And then there is . . . The Incident that no one could have predicted on Phillips Cay."
"‘A truth we all know... but agree not to talk about...’ was how the Clapping Lady from the secretive Consilience Foundation described it to a teenage Methuen Pryce in 2012 as they discussed his Segmented World model.
But it was also a ‘truth’ that Nick O’Grady, ambitious young CEO of the high-tech Allied Answers, had not ‘talked about’ – that was until he invited Methuen to his plush New York office in the summer of ’23.
Against expectations, the bearded academic and slick businessman bonded instantly, with Nick nodding in agreement as Methuen, towards the end of the meeting, asserted: ‘We are quite unprepared for what is about to happen. Most choose to ignore it... or seek comfort in the mistaken idea that somehow technology will bail us out in time.’
Now, in 2050, Nick is travelling south with his wife Lianne through the former USA in a self-drive RV, immersing in virtual scenes from the past forty years and reliving the events that took them, three months earlier, with Methuen, his wife Elizabeth and their daughter Bliss, to the remote Caribbean island of Phillips Cay."
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