'The New Settlement' is a dystopian fantasy set chiefly in a fictional Middle Eastern theocracy during the last years of the twenty-first century. Seven decades have gone by since a nuclear war turned parts of Shemesh's homeland into radioactive netherworlds. A chance reunion with Lamech, a childhood friend, sets in train a series of events that will see Shemesh join an invasion of his own country alongside the robotic forces of Asia's dominant power.
Pragmatic alliances and unprincipled betrayals punctuate the blighted existence of Shemesh and a handful of other individuals endeavouring to survive in a society that treats ordinary men as serfs, all women as sex slaves, and its most vulnerable citizens as organ donors and sources of food for immortal cannibals amongst the elite. As always, lives are transformed through incidental interactions shaped by love affairs, fragile friendships and misplaced trust. Gradually it becomes clear that some must be sacrificed to history so that the most ambitious amongst them can influence its course. In the middle of the interplay of fickle men and tentative women stands a lifelong relationship between Shemesh and Lamech that one of them describes as more than fraternal.
'The New Settlement' highlights humanity's defencelessness against religious extremism, corrupt governments, and the murderous overreach of state sponsored brutality. Amid the toxic shambles there is a longing for the better days of a possibly imaginary past usually referred to as the times of kings and queens.
David Morisset is an Australian writer and former diplomat who served in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. he has published several novels as well as collections of poetry and short stories. His poem, 'Persian Princess', was commended in the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Awards 2009).