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According to Jorge Wilheim’s Fax Messages from a Near Future, (Earthscan,
£8.99, ISBN 1 85383 376 2) we are heading for a series of technological
disasters—a 15 000-vehicle traffic jam in Los Angeles, for
instance—and a stupendous rise in crime, topped off by natural disasters
including a spate of earthquakes. But humanity, chastened, will survive to make
a better world. The fax messages are sent by someone living in 2024. Because of
some ricochet of the arrow of time they are received by a present-day and
startled Brazilian. The book carries overtones of H. G. Wells and is written
with humour and the odd hint of satire.