Stark

by Ben Elton

In Western Australia, the activists of EcoAction catch wind of a secret project. It belongs to Stark, a consortium of wealthy industrialists that knows just how badly the planet is faring. The people trying to find out what Stark is up to include a British show-off, a Vietnam veteran, and Indigenous Australians who have lost their land.

Crime & thriller Science fiction Satire

From the publisher’s blurb

“the social conscience of a dog on a croquet lawn”

Read the full description at Penguin Random House Australia

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What makes it funny?

The industrialists have an alibi for helping poison the planet: in a free market, what else could they possibly have done? Elton lets the people with the money talk about profit as though it were a force of nature.

The comedy at work

The scale of the opposition gives the conspiracy plot its farcical shape. The people who can afford to treat the end of the world as a planning problem are up against a coalition of activists with nowhere near their resources.

Try this if…

This near-future thriller suits readers who like their environmental satire angry and their conspiracies set well outside the boardroom. Elton has jokes for the campaigners as well as for the people in charge.

Good to know

First published in 1989, the novel puts industrial pollution at the center of its doomsday scenario. The stakes stay grim even when the industrialists' excuses get ridiculous.