Although the disaster that takes place in The Rapture is within the realms of possibility, the likelihood of extreme global heating happening so suddenly is small. However, in reality we face a far more potent and immediate threat. If climate change continues unabated, the consequences will be more devastating than most peole — including me — would care to imagine. Several books influenced me during the gestation of this novel, in particular Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, Heat by George Monbiot, The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock, The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery and Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert. For anyone wishing to explore the science further, I recommend the website RealClimate.org. And if you feel moved to take action — which I hope you will be — then joining Friends of the Earth (www.foe.org.uk) and signing up to the IO:IO campaign (www.IO:IO.uk.org) are great ways to start.
I am deeply grateful to all at Bloomsbury, my agent Clare Alexander and her colleague Lesley Thorne at Aitken Alexander Associates, as well as to Carsten Jensen, Matti Coleman, Gail Campbell, Polly Coles, Gina de Ferrer, Humphrey Hawksley, Lisanne Radice, Kate O’Riordan, Kitty and John Sewell and Morgan Todd for their insightful feedback on the manuscript at different stages.
I have quoted the work of Jose Luis Aragon and his colleagues about van Gogh’s perception of turbulence, but extrapolated from it in ways for which I hope they can forgive me. While all errors and liberties in the novel are my own I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the people without whose encouragement, specialist input and respect for the imperatives of poetic licence this book could not have been written. Nicholas Guyatt, author of Have a Nice Doomsday!, shepherded me through the world of Christian evangelism, while Rod and Cathy Sheard kindly gave me an early glimpse of the Olympic stadium. Psychiatrist Dr Mary-Jane Attenburrow offered invaluable advice on the medical front, while Anne Luttman-Johnson generously provided me with insights into paraplegia, and was a huge inspiration throughout the writing of the book. And through the website Sci-talk.0rg.uk I made contact with Dr Daniela Schmidt at Bristol University’s Department of Earth Sciences, whose passion for a fascinating subject and her facility to convey its complexities lit the creative fire and kept it burning.
And thank you, Carsten, for being the love of my life.