'No way of solving these problems exists any more. The conventions collapsed like old bridges. On the one side of the gulf is the mind, eternal and untouched - on the other, the body, running, jumping, bleeding ... The mind can take care of itself, as it has had to from the very beginning; it's not as smart as the body, but it can survive.'

The future Earth of Brian Aldiss's Earthworks is a moribund ecological disaster, ruined by poisons, greed, unsustainable development and overpopulation. Mankind is broken, starving, wracked with disease and divided by bitter social injustice.

Our window into this terrible world is the dangerous, crazed Knowle Noland, whose destructive impulses threaten to upturn the wreckage of civilization, either to redemption or final catastrophe.

Rarely do Science Fiction works stand well the test of time as their suppositions are out-dated and superseded; Brian Aldiss's vision is remarkable for having come closer to reality decades after he conceived of this terrible future.