'The Making of the Representative for Planet 8' is the fourth volume in Doris Lessing's celebrated space fiction series, 'Canopus in Argos: Archives'. In this interlinked quintet of novels, she creates a new, extraordinary cosmos where the fate of the Earth is influenced by the rivalries and interactions of three powerful galactic empires, Canopus, Sirius and their enemy, Puttiora. Blending myth, fable and allegory, Doris Lessing's astonishing visionary creation both reflects and redefines the history of our own world from its earliest beginnings to an inevitable, tragic self-destruction.
'The Making of the Representative for Planet 8' tells the story of the inhabitants of a remote outpost of the Canopean empire. Harmonious, serene and blessed with a tropical climate, the planet's future is threatened by an incipient Ice Age. As the first snowflakes begin to fall and the struggle for survival begins, Doeg, a trusted representative reporting to the leaders of Canopus, begins to record the downfall of his race.
'The Making of the Representative for Planet 8' has been made into an opera by Philip Glass.
"Doris Lessing's descriptions of the landscape are superb: the accounts of the coldness are spectacular. It is hard not to see in this ice age and in the hopes held out and then betrayed, a metaphor of our own times."
HILARY BAILEY, 'Guardian'
"The extraordinary way in which Planet 8 is transmogrified from a happy world bathed in sunshine to the site of the New Ice Age came over as if set down in a Bible. The building of the huge black wall, the crime and fighting as glaciers and snow spread, all combine in sweep and detail to form an unforgettable picture."
MARTYN GOFF, 'Daily Telegraph'