The reason I set Afterwards in the future was to allow for the evolution of politics to catch up with moral arguments. The book begins in the year 2050 with the main character turning 50 that year, which means he was born in 2000. A really scary thought for me. Thinking back throughout our modern history, especially from the industrial revolution and onwards through the Victorian age and into the last century we have never been more politically ruled. As the years roll on to the present day the politicans have taken over each and every facet of our lives, if you think about it nearly everything from how hard we can smack our children, to the shapes of banana's and from the point of view of my book, the euthanasia argument. I believe that we have not allowed our politicians enough time to decide whether it is morally correct for a nation to have a law legalising euthanasia, so to combat this I set the book in the future to allow the powers that be enough moral time to come up with a watertight argument regarding the pro's and con's of euthanasia. I always like to think that it wasn't that long ago that the politicans decreed it to be illegal to be homosexual, or deny women the vote, this list is truly endless and I believe that in time we will have euthanasia as a legal viable thing in the UK, once they at Westminster decide we are allowed it.
Another reason I set Afterwards the future was for the advancement of medicine, without giving too much away we travel 50 years on from 2050 to the same character somewhat more alive than we left him 50 years previously, this is solely down to the advancement of medicine in the year, 2100.
In the year 2050 I shall be 81 years of age, a scary thought for me although in the year 2100 I would be 131 years of age a less daunting number because, well, I've no hope of living that long no matter how much the science of medicine evolves. Is fear only produced through attaining a goal? I would say yes.
