Light the fuse

Not the great New Zealand mobilisation novel

An early work-in-progress dedicated to helping,
circuitously, precipitate the Great Mobilisation

Dare to be wise!
Kant

Preface

Contents
author Cimino
work-in-progress published 20240630

Hitachi in-motion-charging trolley dump-truck

Demonstration of Mega In-Motion-Charging: The fetish for all things wireless is doing at-scale electrification an enormous disservice. Grid-powered vehicles are not perceived as sexy, meaning that a rendering of this Hitachi in-motion-charging dump-truck, without the catenary overhead, is prone to be that used to promote the vehicle. The dump-truck depicted is currently undergoing trials with First Quantum Minerals, in Zambia. rendering Hitachi Construction Machinery

Principal premise of Light the fuse: Not the great New Zealand novel is that humankind will only mobilise to salvage a remotely survivable climate, if, and only if, the mobilisation needed is promptly, convincingly demonstrated.

Beyond urgent, the imperative for mobilisation will be argued elsewhere—but only sparingly. The proto demonstration must necessarily be on a relatively small scale—the transformation of a democracy of say of six million people, as opposed to a civilisation of eight billion. Not, of course, is convincing 0.06% of the planet’s population a trivial target.

To do a blind bit of good, of course, news of the demonstration must be pervasive. In the 1960s, it was demonstrated, that the word could be spread, with the first of the heavy lifting done by three-minute-long pop songs. But movies did much of the work, from A Hard Day’s Night to Easy Rider. However, the mission facing humanity, in the mid-2020s, demands that civilisation is comprehensively reengineered, never mind merely walking on the Moon, countering consumerist culture, much less destroying rock ’n’ roll—the movie demands to be mega.

Not fancying for a moment this story’s author has either the talent or the industry to write a satirical or otherwise Mouse That Roared, his Light the fuse instead is a tiny Grand FenwickianFenwick: Leonard Wibberley’s fictional, Mouse That Roared, Duchy of arrow shot into the air—in the rationally forlorn hope that its release, somehow, ultimately goads a real author into taking on the Megamobilisation-precipitating project—an author with the chops to get their pager-turner optioned as the mega-motion picture so desperately needed.

Routes by which a tyro-novelist activist could, at least semi-plausibly, provoke a fully-fledged mega-motion picture, are myriad. The mega-modello device, however, permits a veritable matrix of plot-plausible routes. The path Cimino chooses to take, in Light the fuse , is his own, not-entirely-counterfactual one.

An early objective, along the Light the fuse road, is to somehow attract the interest a household name. This household name, in a perfect world, would write such a compelling foreword that Light the fuse: Not the great New Zealand novel , in turn, convinced an actual author to take up the cudgel of writing a truly compelling novel, before too many were subjected the stumbling beginnings of this one.

In short, if this novel modello gets to be completed, the chances will be that it failed abjectly in its arguably megalomaniacal mission. Meantime, if there begin to be signs that humanity and its leaders have finally grasped the urgency for meaningful electrification, the influential media of the day will be heralding, for example, the widespread deployment of in-motion-charging mega-dump-trucks, powered by the smallest battery practicable, or locally, in-motion-charging trolley buses on New Zealand’s busways…

…or even more locally, an in-motion-charging fourth-tier targeted service, Waiwera–Wenderholm–Pūhoi.

Foreword | Author’s note

Return to top of page | End notes

Disclosure The editor of this content is no longer the secretary of either the Mahurangi Action Incorporated or the Mahurangi Coastal Path Trust. Regardless, the content published here continues to be that of the editorially independent, independently owned and funded Mahurangi Magazine.