Publisher's Synopsis
A political allegory by the author of 'Depravity', 'The dream', 'The machine' and 'Meltdown'.
'Phil 81' is a short story about a community of pheasants that struggles to cope with the poor decision-making of their leaders. Phil 81, one of the pheasants and the main character through whose eyes the story is told, is increasingly ill-at-ease with his fellow pheasants and their misguided priorities, especially about the decision of their group to cut all links to neighbouring pheasant groups. But Phil 81, embedded in the rigid pheasant hierarchy and surrounded by meaningless gossip, misinformation and lies, finds it impossible to identify a meaningful solution to the conundrum. The resulting story is an 'Animal Farm'-like political allegory that bears some resemblance to recent political events in the UK. It will appeal to the critical, politically-minded reader who does not take current politics for granted, and who is realistic about the challenging outcomes of recent political events.
