If Then

James has a scar in the back of his head. It’s where he was wounded in the Battle of Suvla Bay in August 1915. Or is the scar the mark of his implant that allows the Process to fill his mind with its own reality?

In IF, the people of a small English town cling on after an economic collapse under the protection of the Process. But sometimes people must be evicted from the town. That’s the job of James, the bailiff. While on patrol, James discovers the replica of a soldier from the First World War wandering the South Downs. This strange meeting begins a new cycle of evictions in the town, while out on the rolling downland, the Process is methodically growing the soldiers and building the weapons required to relive a long lost battle.

In THEN, it is August 1915, at the Battle of Suvla Bay in the Dardanelles campaign. Compared to the thousands of allied soldiers landing on this foreign beach, the men of the 32nd Field Ambulance are misfits and cranks of every stripe: a Quaker pacifist, a freethinking padre, a meteorologist, and the private (once a bailiff) known simply as James. Exposed to constant shellfire and haunted by ghostly snipers, the stretcher-bearers work day and night on the long carry of wounded men. One night they stumble across an ancient necropolis, disturbed by an exploding shell. What they discover within this ancient site will make them question the reality of the war and shake their understanding of what it means to be human…

Matthew de Abaitua was born in Liverpool in 1971. After graduating from the University of East Anglia Creative Writing MA studying under Malcolm Bradbury, he lived and worked as Will Self’s amanuensis in a remote cottage in Suffolk. He joinedThe Idler as Deputy Editor and was Literary Editor of Esquire. His short story ‘Inbetween’ was included in the bestselling anthologyDisco Biscuits and adapted as a short film by Channel 4, for whom he also wrote and presented a 9-part documentary series about British science fiction calledSF:UK. His first novel The Red Men (Snowbooks 2007, Gollancz ebook 2013) was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award.

In 2013, the first chapter was adapted as a short film ‘Dr. Easy’ by directors Shynola (produced by Film4 and Warp) as a precursor to a feature film, currently in development. ‘Dr. Easy’ currently has had 237k views on Vimeo. He currently lectures on Creative Writing at Brunel University and Writing Science Fiction at the University ofEssex.