Playground

I am not a beach person. Traumatised by a near-drowning as a child, given the choice, I will head for hills over coast every single time. So this book, most of which is set either beneath the waves or on an island nine miles wide in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, should have given me nightmares. And yet, somehow, it didn’t. I adored it. I may even consider going to look at the water again one day soon. (I’m still not going in, though … )

Billionaire tech giant Todd Keane has just been diagnosed with dementia. He is in his 50s. He needs to explain himself, and his life thus far, so he dictates it to an AI, the ‘grandchild’ of one he built years earlier. Keane made his fortune by creating ‘Playground’, one of the most popular social media sites in the world. He has dedicated decades to building tech that could one day make humanity redundant. Now he’s dying.

Rafi Young is Keane’s best friend from school. Black, a prodigy, and forever scarred by the loss of his sister, Rafi wants nothing more than to beat death at its own game. His Polynesian artist girlfriend Ina completes their triangle for a time, but eventually retreats to the island of Makatea, a place once gutted by the French for the phosphate it was rich in, now wanted again by American seasteaders. (Google seasteading, it’s real.) Also on the island is diver Evie Beaulieu. (Don’t Google her, she is not real, but she should be.)

The stories of these four people are woven together spectacularly. The island and everyone on it should be saved, so should our oceans, and everything in them. This landlubber was moved to tears by the imagery, the mystical beings, the mythology and the empathy of the world Powers creates both above and below the water. This is a stunning work of art, which should be read by all. And then, instead of billionaires spending squillions on travelling to outer space, perhaps they would focus on a place closer to home, somewhere much more important, and relevant, and yet just as beautiful and otherworldly …