People often say that the biology-denying extremes of gender ideology are as crazy as flat-earthery. In my new novel, out on Kindle today, I explore how you might foist flat-earth beliefs on the world in the way that gender ideologues have performed their own spectacular capture.
In my imaginary world, a benign map-making charity called the Orange Peel Foundation, which has been campaigning to wean the world away from inaccurate Mercator projection maps, has completed all its work and is about to wind itself up.
But then it's offered a vast sum of money by a Californian tech billionaire called Joey Talavera to convince the world that the earth is flat. When founder Mel Winterbourne objects, she is sacked and replaced by her ambitious young deputy, Shane Foxley.
It's a tall order for Foxley. If he just announces the earth is flat, everyone will laugh and he'll have no chance of success. He has to go about the plan by stealth: piggy-backing on more popular conspiracy theories (eg around the moon landings) and also on a mood of anti-racism
For example: thanks to a C19th myth, Christopher Columbus is associated with 'globularist' beliefs that vanquished flat-earthery. But his statues are now being toppled. Why not harness that rage, framing the division of the world into two hemispheres as a racist social construct?
If Foxley has learned anything about the new era of social media, it's that people will believe anything as long as the rest of their tribe believe it – especially if they're led on by gullible blue-tick celebrities like the feather-brained Lateefa Latif.
He also knows baying mobs love having someone to bully and destroy. So when freelance journalist Ginny Pugh scents that something strange is going on at Orange Peel, Foxley and the useful idiot editor of website Earth News, Ricky 'Simpleton' Singleton, relish taking Ginny down.
Gradually, however, a resistance gathers to resist Orange Peel's deranged 'True Earth' ideology. They are reviled as 'True Earth Rejecting Globularists' or TERGs. Since they're mainly based in the UK, their country becomes known as TERG Island. They're quite flattered by that.
Do they defeat the bullying flat-earth zealots? You'll have to read THE END OF THE WORLD IS FLAT to find out. All I can tell you is that it has gone down well with some people well known in these parts, such as @bindelj and @blablafishcakes...
and with @HJoyceGender (did I read somewhere that she also has a book out? 🤣😉)...
and with @FrancisWheen, who wrote a book called How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, which gives him a certain expertise in this field...
And with @SimonFanshawe (look out for his own book The Power of Difference, coming soon)...
and with @Gillian_Philip, a hugely accomplished and prolific adventure writer for teenagers, whom the flat-earthers tried to cancel for heresy
I'm very conscious that it's much easier for a male author to tip his toe into these poisoned waters than for a woman. That's why THE END OF THE WORLD IS FLAT is dedicated to six indefatigable women who have also suffered greatly for believing the earth is round
While my novel is inspired by the real world, it's a work of the imagination, not a depiction of real people, organisations or events. I hope it will make you laugh. It's out on Kindle today, at the bargain price of £2.84
amazon.co.uk/End-World-Flat…
The paperback is out a month today, on August 16, although if you order it directly from Eye Books you may get it sooner than that. UK p&p is free. It will be out that same day in the US too. Ask your bookseller to order it.
eye-books.com/books/the-end-…
I know there are loads of books out at the moment and everyone's on a budget. NB you can always ask your library to get them in. If you do, you'll be doing a favour to authors like @Docstockk, @HJoyceGender, @SimonFanshawe, @AbigailShrier, @RooneyRachel and me. Happy reading!
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.