2023: A Trilogy

Cover image of "2023" by The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu

2023 is a fiction novel written by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty and released in August 2017 under their JAMS moniker. The book’s midnight launch marked the beginning of their three-day “Welcome To The Dark Ages” event in Liverpool.

Originally released as hardcover edition 2023 also has been made available as paperback and audiobook edition.

Official Synopsis

Well we’re back again,
They never kicked us out,
twenty thousand years of
SHOUT SHOUT SHOUT

Down through the epochs and out across the continents, generation upon generation of the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu have told variants of the same story – an end of days story, a final chapter story. But one with hope, even if the hope at times seems forlorn.

The story contained in this trilogy is the latest telling. Here it is presented as a utopian costume drama, set in the near future, written in the recent past.

Read with care.

REMEMBERED – TOLD – TRANSCRIBED
for K 2 Plant Hire Ltd.

Back Cover Blurb

In the Spring of 2013, the undertakers Cauty & Drummond were on a tour of the Western Isles of Scotland. It was while staying at Jura’s one hotel that they came across a strange-looking book. The book was titled Back in the USSR and authored by someone using the name of Gimpo. Back in the USSR was the memoir of a young woman who had been a nurse in the Falklands War in 1982.

Gimpo ended up in Kiev in what was then the Soviet state of The Ukraine. Here she met with two women named Tat’jana and Kristina who went under numerous aliases, the most widely used being The KLF. Also in Back in the USSR it was claimed that Tat’jana and Kristina had been heavily influenced by a book originally written in English as The Twenty Twenty-Three! Trilogy by someone calling themselves George Orwell. But this George Orwell was in turn the pen name of Roberta Antonia Wilson.

What you are about to read is what they read – well, almost. As for Back in the USSR, if we are able to sell the initial edition of this book and make a return on our investment, we hope to publish that. As for the current whereabouts of Tat’jana and Kristina, we have no idea. They were last seen disappearing into the depths of the Black Sea in their decommissioned Project 865 Piranha submarine. This supposed disappearance happened on 23 August 1994. Rumour on the internet has it they would not reappear for another twenty-three years.

Reviews

Part of the problem here is that there is too much borrowing and simply not enough stealing. The KLF’s boldness in making other people’s riffs their own in music is utterly lacking in their prose style. […] 2023 is enslaved by its sources, and we’re merely left to notch up the references along the way.
Jake Arnott, The Guardian
Jake Arnott

7 thoughts on “2023: A Trilogy

  1. Isn’t it a bit ironic that your book is only available with the invasive Adobe DRM? Where it can easily happen that I’m not able to use books I bought in the future, because I want to read them on another device?

    I am all for paying artists for their work. I also don’t mind “soft” DRM that will only make me traceable, should I upload the book to some sharing service, but keep the book usable wherever and whenever I want to. But I won’t pay for stuff I don’t own afterwards. So I had to get the book from non-official sources.

    Maybe ask your publisher to rectify that. If they don’t know how to use soft DRM, tell them to ask German publishers. Hard DRM that makes the files defective isn’t much in use here anymore since years.

    1. What’s this “your book” , “your publisher” stuff? This site is not run by KLF. This is just a fan site!

  2. The promo edition available from the publishers was mostly blank pages and some minor edits from the final print copy.

    The paperback versions have the same pagination as the hardback.

    There is also a Spanish translation.

  3. Enjoyed the 23 year return of the KLF. This book is nuts, but also full of KLF folklore through Easter eggs and history. Mentions such as The police car, the submarine, Ricardo Da Force, Daleks, money burning…nothing left out of their history if you are a KLF buff. Recent history as of 2017 is mentioned such Cauty’s interest in miniatures and the return of the KLF on the 23rd of August 2017 and their crematorium pyramid block company. Pop culture references and hipster putdowns made this an interesting, yet not great book. 3/5. One for the fans.

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