Ben Elton Collection (eBook): "Gridlock", "Chart Throb" and "Blind Faith"

Synopsis

"Gridlock" - Too many cars and not enough space equals gridlock. Gridlock is when a city dies, killed in the name of freedom, killed in the name of oil and steel, and choked on carbon monoxide and strangled with a pair of fluffy dice. How did it come to this? How did the ultimate freedom machine end up paralyzing us all? How did we end up driving to our own funeral, in somebody else's gravy train? Deborah and Geoffrey know, but they have transport problems of their own, and anyway, whoever it was that murdered the city can just as easily murder them. "Chart Throb" - Chart Throb is the ultimate pop quest. There are ninety five thousand hopefuls, three judges and just one winner. And that's Calvin Simms, the genius behind the show. Calvin always wins because Calvin writes the rules. But this year, as he sits smugly in judgement upon the mingers, clingers and blingers whom he has pre-selected in his carefully scripted 'search' for a star, he has no idea that the rules are changing. The 'real' is about to be put back into 'reality' television and Calvin and his fellow judges (the nation's favorite mum and the other bloke) are about to become ex - factors themselves. Chart Throb has one winner and a whole bunch of losers. "Blind Faith" - Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody and where 'sharing' is valued above all, and privacy is considered a dangerous perversion. Trafford wouldn't call himself a rebel, but he's daring to be different, to stand out from the crowd. In his own small ways, he wants to push against the system. But in this world, uniformity is everything. And even tiny defiances won't go unnoticed. Ben Elton's dark, savagely comic novel imagines a post-apocalyptic society where religious intolerance combines with a sex-obsessed, utterly egocentric culture. In this world, nakedness is modesty, independent thought subversive, and ignorance is wisdom. A chilling vision of what's to come? Or something rather closer to home?