Drowning Towers — George Turner

THE FUTURE IS NO SURPRISE.

Francis Conway is Swill--one of the ninety percent in the year 2041 who must subsist on the inadequate charities of the State. A young boy growing up in a world dangerously overburdened by ten billion souls, he lives with his family in the shadow of the towering public housing monoliths. But life, already difficult, is rapidly becoming impossible for Francis and the millions like him. For corruption, official blindness and catastrophic nature have conspired to turn Swill homes into watery tombs, and Francis seeks desperately to rise above his circumstances and escape the approaching tide of disaster.

But here, at the end of everything there is no higher ground.