Stella’s world is unravelling in this remarkable work of speculative fiction – reminiscent of Netflix satire Black Mirror and The Handmaid’s Tale – a new novel from writer and literary agent Chris Else. Climate change is ever-present in chilling, dystopian novel Waterline. Here, in a remote South Pacific nation, coastal settlements are being inundated and families uprooted; Artificial Intelligence controls most human endeavour; social media has run amok, and many have fled from reality to live online. Losing their uninsurable beachfront home to storm and high seas, wealthy nuclear family the Handsons have little choice but to move to Byte, a bleak, southern city run by computerised bureaucracy BORIS and a gang of religious vigilantes. Separated in the move, Brian ends up on the wrong side of the law and is incarcerated, leaving wife Stella and their two teenage children, Mandy and Luke, to fend for themselves. An offer of help from a group of outsiders, living off the land, promises redemption and hope, but at what cost? Waterline explores the choices our own and future generations might have to face in our increasingly complex society. It is a dramatic and portentous tale about the decisions we make now and how they might challenge all our values. Darkly humorous, laced with violence and corruption, it also examines the human capacity for change, responsibility, self-determination, and the search for meaning and love.