|
 
A Tale of Two Islands is an intriguing pair of stories
about visitors to two very different islands. One is
a sustainable, egalitarian utopian commune in a lush
paradise, and the other is eight thousand miles away,
a harsh, bleak outpost of the British Empire.
Rainbow
Fallon (who now calls himself Ray), the visitor to the
utopian island, is returning after fourteen years to
the birthplace he left as a teenager; David Cox, the
visitor to the other island, is a scientist hired to
set up a sustainable garden to grow fresh produce on
the barren terrain.
Ray
has come to confront his past and to wreak vengeance
on the community he views as elitists in trying to hold
onto a pocket of utopia in an increasingly dystopian
world, and whom he blames for certain personal traumatic
events because he feels their commune's tenets are naïve
and ill-equipped to deal with harsh realities. David
Cox more empathetically faces the numerous obstacles
to creating his sustainable garden -- the clashing interests
of the island's ruling class, the British military and
the marginalized locals, in addition to the harsh climate.
Each of the visits is a growing experience for the visitors
as well as a transformative one for the lives they touch
during their time on the islands.
This
novel is an interesting read for Utopian Dreamers, not
only in its depiction of a utopian commune, but also
in its contemplative questions and insights about the
real-world implications, complications and consequences
of creating and maintaining utopian communities or even
a utopian garden in a dystopian world.
A Tale of Two Islands
by Bruce Castle
Read
FREE with Kindle Unlimited
|
A Tale of Two Islands is an intriguing pair of stories
about visitors to two very different islands. One is
a sustainable, egalitarian utopian commune in a lush
paradise, and the other is eight thousand miles away,
a harsh, bleak outpost of the British Empire. 
