A foreword to the novel, set nearly a thousand years in the future, recounts an archaeological expedition by the Royal Society of Abyssinia into the desolate wasteland that was once England.

A deeply provincial and self-centred man, Hopkins' quiet West Country village life changes completely in October 1944 when he is summoned to London for an urgent meeting of the British Lunar Society, of which he is a member.

A direct collision would mean the total destruction of all human life, though there remains a slim chance of survival if the moon delivers only a glancing blow.

The discovery ignites fierce competition, with European nations withdrawing agreement to Britain’s land corridor and demanding a greater share of the moon’s riches.

In London, power is seized by Major Jagger, a fanatic who insists that Britain must abandon negotiations and take the lead in subjugating other European nations to enforce peace.

Before long, he learns from a fellow survivor of news that never reached his isolated village: while the nations of Europe were locked in conflict, a vast army led by Selim the Liberator, a charismatic Persian leader, had swept across from the East to destroy their hated white oppressors.

As his end approaches, some seven years after the cataclysm, Hopkins holes himself up and feverishly records his memories in a self-titled 'Hopkins Manuscript' that he hopes will one day shed a light on these dark times.

However, as the novel's foreword has already revealed, when the manuscript is rediscovered nearly a thousand years later, it is dismissed by the new Eastern civilisation as a worthless narrative by a man of limited vision that sheds little light on the downfall of the ancient Western world.