Urgent State by Larry Pratt

It often feels like the end of the world is fast approaching, and Urgent State: One Route to Saving our Species by author Larry Pratt is a pragmatic piece of fiction that may help readers understand our imminent global crises a bit better.

In this third book of the Urgent series, an effort to save mankind from itself is launched – a small coterie of thinkers and philanthropists hole up in secret to fund critical research and push science forward in the hopes of rescuing the planet from annihilation. However, to overcome the fundamental crises of corruption, greed, narrow-mindedness, and political posturing, more than good ideas are required, and this plot points to many of the issues holding humanity back from true positive change.

While this is a piece of fiction, Pratt loads this text with relevant facts, examinations of modern industries, and analyses of social issues that often feel torn from today’s headlines. This ambitious and philosophically-driven book at times reads like a piece of non-fiction, and this realistic accessibility is why Urgent State is so impactful. This book touches on global issues that will continue to be unavoidable: climate change, democratic collapse, genocide, and income inequality, among others. The plot of the novel, and the proposed manners of progress, are not necessarily templates for the real world, but they do have the power to spark the right conversations.

For anyone who is ready to pull back the protective facade of self-denial, Larry Pratt has established a powerhouse of a premise in this series, and delivers a gripping and vital novel with Urgent State.