I have been working on the PR campaign for this is incredible book(which came to me serendipitously), Twenty, Twenty by the highly-acclaimed author, Nigel Watts, which is a blueprint for 2020, which was originally published in 1995 by Hodder and Stoughton.
The book eerily and accurately predicts a global pandemic that occurs in the year 2020 causing the world to communicate largely through virtual technology, with people wearing masks, a drastic reduction of air travel leading to ‘virtual tourism’, and nature fighting back for its survival due to mankind’s destruction of our planet.
Tragically, Watts took his own life in 1999 and now 25 years later, his very brave widow, former BBC presenter and broadcaster, Sahera Chohan has republished this timely and relevant book this August; the book’s anniversary month.
At the time, when it came launched, the book received rave reviews from The Times, Time Out, Sunday Times and more. The Times said: “Twenty Twenty is about the end of the world, viral apocalypse, virtual reality…[it] asks the big questions at a time of global destruction and spiritual uncertainty…an intriguing synthesis between ancient mysticism and the brave new world of virtuality. It is a book to make the pulse race, the mind dance and the heart sink.”
Twenty Twenty foretells the events of the year 2020, where an ageing writer infected with a deadly virus and despairing of mankind’s continuing damage to the planet retreats to a derelict factory in the icy wastes of northern Canada. Meanwhile, at a remote research institute in the Californian desert, William Morrison, a virtual reality test pilot, and Julia
O’Brien, a British anthropologist, are working on a VR simulation of the Amazonian Kogi tribe. William and Julia appear to have little in common, until they discover an uncanny connection that finds them being drawn towards a derelict factory in northern Canada. As the story escalates to its dramatic conclusion, Watts powerfully manipulates the reader’s perceptions of reality, whilst blurring the boundary between creator and created.
Nigel Watts has drawn his name in the sands of time, putting him side-by-side with some of the greatest futuristic authors – Orwell, Huxley and H.G.Wells – securing Twenty Twenty not just as a book of our time, but an enduring and influential novel. Needless to say the book has been drawing lots of media attention and it has been such a great book campaign to work on…to know how it ends you will need to buy the book, which is available on Amazon.
