The Next Enemy Shall Be The Last by Stewart Hotston

I would like to thank NewCon press for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for fair and honest review

Publisher – NewCon Press

Published – Out Now

Price – £13.99 paperback

In the 1970s something lands on a beach in Devon. An artefact that twists space time and renders our grasp of reality irrelevant. Somehow, it also endows those near it with the ability to change the laws of physics.

Forty years later suspicions grow that there may be a second artefact. In Russia. Moses is sent to investigate and, if necessary, neutralise the threat

Told across two generations, this gripping tale follows a father, Ben, and his son, Moses, separated by forty years as the former helps set up a government agency to deal with the phenomenon and the latter deals with the consequences of his late father's actions.

Science Fiction has long been interested in alternate history. There are a huge number of media exploring what would happen if Nazis won World War 2 but the power of ‘what if’ is also a useful way to explore our time. Why is this waves hands around better than the alterative options? We can get an examination of the social issues of the past and what they mean for the future and wonder who gets to decide what is our future and why have they decided this. In Stewart Hotston’s compelling science fiction novel The Next Enemy Shall Be the Last we explore a tale mixing first contact, cold war thrillers and compelling action that is well balanced with two thought-provoking main characters.

Its 1975 and Benjamin Brown and his wife Velvet are trying to have a holiday by the sea in the UK. Ben is trying not to get too frustrated that since leaving the Caribbean for the promise of work and a new life he finds racism and no one willing to accept a mechanical engineer who is black deserves a role beyond backstreet car mechanics who do not speak to customers. His marriage is also starting to fracture under the strain. As he tries alone to watch the waves the sky is suddenly opened up and he alongside a few others witnesses the breaking of the laws of physics. This will plunge Ben into a world of secret organisations, cold war terror and most of all an encounter with the truly alien.

In 2015, Moses Brown works for a powerful but shadowy agency to protect Britain from its enemies in the decades long Cold War. Moses though has the ability to Twist - change space to suit needs be that landing dice the right way up, travel without moving or attacking enemy agents with fragments of reality itself. But the founders of the Agency are being targeted and Moses is assigned to investigate. He starts a path that explores potential betrayal within the Agency itself and finds a trail leading back to his missing presumed dead father Benjamin.

This is a fascinating intricate story that delivers a lot of style and punch but also subtly raises questions about the choices we see happen. The opening of both sections are equally dramatic and show that we are not in the world as we know or knew it any more. In 1975 we get a fantastic truly first contact that uses the warping of time and space to create something truly unnerving. Hotston adds a flourish of synaesthesia to show how the human mind just can’t cope with such a dramatic event. That this just happens out of no where on a U.K. beach is a great juxtaposition and we soon watch Ben and a few others he meets plunged into then impact of such an encounter. Ben though appears the only person to actually consider talking to an alien (one without any organic form) without fear or malice. It’s an excellent hook for readers and will then engross you into the timeline.

In the 2015 strand we then get evidence that 1975 left its mark. Here we see the Cold War is ongoing, East German refugees have been escaping to the UK and are being used as slave labour. Moses is shown to take the people smugglers on and here his dimensional powers known as ‘Twisting’ get demonstrated in truly kinetic sequences and are also shown to be quite dangerous. Even without the 1975 chapter prior we would be interested to find out more about the world that has now been created.

The 1975 strand then created a fascinating mix of British Cold War thriller that mixes the high stakes of imminent nuclear war with run down administrative sites, harassed officials and endless bureaucracy with the feeling of a first contact story. Ben and the other witnesses are taken away from loved ones, into military and government control and as the scientists realise they have been changed by the alien encounter they are going to be reviewed. It’s a fascinating claustrophobic timeline. Ben and his witnesses are a mixture of class and genders and the group is initially very districting but start to to come together. The government bring the mysterious and large cube that has arrived to their base and slowly Ben again makes contact with an entity known as The Spinnaker. After the impressive dimensional reengineering of the early chapters how we are into the world of trust, secrets and government power with a wider sense of Cold War paranoia making everyone wonder if this is just a cunning enemy attack. We feel Ben’s growing sense of fear and also exasperation that he is not being heard.

This theme is subverted a little in the 2015 timeline as Moses is part of the structure. In many ways as the Cold War here has continued we can draw a neat line as again we still have put upon government agencies and endless bureaucracy but Hostob now adds into this another classic Cold War element of the double agent to be found. Just this time they may also be capable of changing time and space to aid their unknown agenda. Moses works cor feuding bosses, has a secret girlfriend in the agency he can’t tell anyone about and thanks to his new mission starts to unearth the real truth about the entity known as Spinnaker. It’s a compelling mystery helped by us seeing past and future versions of the 1975 characters and the hints that events in the past are key to why this world is as it is now.

Now all of these are compelling, well plotted and intricate storytelling but for me what is the gel that really grabs you are the character choices and impacts that arise. In 2015 we are told the events of 1975 prevented nuclear Armageddon and led to Britain continued strategic role in the Cold War balance of power. But we also find out that thanks to the presence of Spinnaker on Earth the laws of physics don’t work as they used to. The idea of the ‘microchip’ is a failed 1960s experiment. We are so used to alternate history being about government control but Hotston posits instead that events do have impacts and big ones but we are in a different world. Would we consider (and this is a very U.K. focused tale) that if we change history to avoid 1980s Thatcherism we also lose out on the digital revolution at the same time? It’s worth noting we are not at a critical flashpoint in World History in this book. That the Cold War continuing in all its glory into the 21st century is worth the extension of Britain as a major power? The worldbuilding here is subtle and provocative as to where things could go. There is a sense that our world is better but its degrees off rather than the familiar imagine the UK but with more Nazis that we have tended to see in this subgenre (although reality is also doing that enough these days).

So why did things change? This gets us back into the 1975 plot and in particular Ben’s choices. Ben is a black man in an unenlightened 1975 continually underestimated and often abused. That can be in the form of employers and customers who do not want people of colour touching their cars but also in the throes of a first contact we see members of the group do not well to a Black man’s presence he is sometimes more feared than the actual alien. Taken into government control we see blatant racism and dangerous attacks on Ben and yet he still wants to be heard and listened to especially as he seems someone that Spinnaker is keen to talk to. The story notes that Ben is seen by an alien as actually quite similar to themselves and that starts a connection - being on the outside watching inwards. Ben as a benefit get immense and dangerous power and yet perhaps most heartbreakingly decides a chance to prove what he is a label of requires him to got to East Germany and make a point. He wants to be accepted and respected and that aligns nicely with a government agenda. There is allisij to how Ben and Vea came over as part of the Commonwelwth actually asking people to work in the U.K. and yet are scorned by the same country. The consequences of Ben’s choice we can see will go on for decades. Boston makes the reader pay attention to how British attitudes and lower strictures create this future that isn’t that great.

Moses’ timeline gives us though hope but buried under treachery, death and espionage and yet we realise he is also haunted by the father he never met or knew much about. The constant risk taker he is contrasts to Ben’s more quieter and cautious manner and I really liked how Hotston notes how these events created his character and torment. Ben is not perfect either going into this encounter allows him to escape a rocky marriage and discussion he does not want to have and that absence he creates leaves a huge impact on Ben. Moses starts to learn the painful realisation that life and choices are complicated and not always so simple, perhaps the best choice is to let go and allow yourself and your world to move on. We get the answers to what happened in 1975 but no big red reset button gets pressed we have to make do of what is done.

The Next Enemy Shall Be the Last is deliciously intricate, thoughtful, action packed and makes the reader ponder the choices made and the world that creates them. It’s a science fiction novel I strongly recommend!