It could happen, you know…

During the penultimate scribblings of the 3rd draft of the current book, Sarah interrupted me last Friday with the news that Sheffield was flooded. My first reaction was “yeah, right… Sheffield is built on several hills…” but like some giddy kid I dashed out of the study and took a look for myself.
Sheffield had indeed flooded, or rather partially – Ecclesfield and Chapeltown under several feet of brown water and witnessing those scenes usually attributed to say York or Worcester and their perennial flooding (i.e. the fire-services ferrying stranded homeowners down the main street in inflatable dinghies).

The flooding came barely days after my conversation with Sarah regarding a new writing project for the Autumn/Winter…

…You see I’ve decided to delay The Fortress of Black Glass (the follow-up to the follow-up of The Secret War) until maybe 2009, depending largely on whether the second book gets published (though not solely – I’ll still write it regardless). So I’m looking at an interim project and there have been several mooted in this blog already. One of these is a project entitled The Isles of Sheffield – set forty years from now featuring a feudal state where the UK and the world have witnessed the most devastating floods in history. The city of Sheffield is largely under water and reduced to an archipelago governed by this guy called First Minister Benjamin who resides in what is currently the University of Sheffield buildings. The main street has become something resembling a tawdry Venice, the hills have become islands and are bridged primitively or only accessible by boat, and the city even has it’s own navy.

The full structure of the book is still under wraps, but I’ve planned it as a circular collection of stories about the city’s inhabitants involving gangsters, ministers, brothels, assassinations, battles with Welsh pirates and the threat of war with the City of Buxton - all revolving around my home city under many feet of water. An idea that was, until recently, quite removed from reality.

I even remember joking to Sarah that “yes, Sheffield flooding to that degree certainly would be escapist fiction.”

Now I’m not so sure.