John Fraser's latest work of fiction, The Future's Coming Everywhere,
comprises two thematically linked stories. In the first, Candice, echoing
both Voltaire's Candide - a disillusioned idealist and world traveller -
and Zadig, the last wise, just king of Babylon - Candice sets out to find
power and wisdom. Her reason is dwarfed by a huge powerless electronic
brain, functioning without purpose or control. She is compelled by office
politics to flee, through the natural park she herself created. Managing to
evade pursuit, regaining her autonomy and mobility, she finds the people
she meets along the reservation's edge have neither power nor wisdom,
but they do illuminate. Eventually she finds solace and refuge in a bar,
The Truce.
In the second tale, Friends, Danièle, after adventures in the catering
trade and estrangement from her friends and lovers, realises that it is in
Law that wisdom and justice must reside. Wisdom is everywhere, law is
precarious, but in the end she finds the latest king of Babylon, in his vast,
near-deserted residence. She waits for people to arrive, to benefit from
this enlightened rule, but will she wait alone...?
