Not the End of the World: A Comic Fantasy Novel, Set in the Not Too Distant Future

Sometime in the not too distant future, Merc Swingly – a young, naive employee of one of the seven multi-national companies, which control the world through figurehead politicians – dreams that the world has come to an end.

He is instructed by a weird creature, who calls himself a ''Third Degree Representative', to go back and prevent this happening.

Sometime in the future, who knows how far away, all the things which people have been dreading and issuing warnings about for years are beginning to happen.

The planet earth has finally become one political unit. Its capital city is now called Nexus Luxuria. Luxury, after all, is clearly the thing most people have been aiming for all their lives.

Life has developed in an almost exactly similar fashion to the threatened forecasts. The world has at last achieved all those marvellous things we’ve at present only started to acquire for ourselves – global warming; over-use and exhaustion of fossil fuels; a third world with slave labour factories; globalization of commerce until just seven multi-national companies are running the entire planet (under a titular World President with seven Vice Presidents – a Government with no real power, but considerable wealth and status); and a population kept happy by recreational drugs, which are no longer frowned on but instead encouraged. In fact, an other-earthly paradise – not!

Oh, and at a guess the future time when all this is happening is about a hundred years ahead of ours. Or is it only fifty?

Gerry McCullough has been writing poems and stories since childhood. Brought up in north Belfast, she graduated in English and Philosophy from Queen's University, Belfast, then went on to gain an MA in English. She lives just outside Belfast, in Northern Ireland, has four grown up children and is married to author, media producer and broadcaster, Raymond McCullough, with whom she co-edited the Irish magazine, 'Bread', (published by Kingdom Come Trust), from 1990-96. In 1995 they published a non-fiction book called, 'Ireland - now the good news!' Over the past few years Gerry has had more than sixty short stories published in UK, Irish and American magazines, anthologies and annuals - as well as broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster. Her poems and articles have been published in several Northern Ireland and UK magazines, and she has also done readings from her novels, poems and short stories at several Irish literary events. She writes a regular literary blog - Gerry's Books - and guest writes for several other literary blogs. Gerry won the Cúirt International Literary Award for 2005 (Galway); was shortlisted for the 2008 Brian Moore Award (Belfast); shortlisted for the 2009 Cúirt Award; commended in the 2009 Seán O'Faolain Short Story Competition, (Cork) and commended in the 2015 Harmony House Poetry Award (Downpatrick).