The Weathermonger is set during the period of a few years in which presentday England is held in the grip of the Changes. The most pronounced effect of the Changes stems from the feelings of revulsion they generate in people toward power-driven machinery, feelings which result in society's return to a preindustrialized mode of living. But an even more significant aspect of the Changes is reflected in society's lapse into superstition, ignorance, and hatred of outsiders. Curiously, the Changes have not had the same effect on all of England's inhabitants, and those not succumbing to its effects flee into the countryside or escape across the English Channel to France.

Although The Weathermonger opens dramatically with Geoffrey and Sally near death in Weymouth harbor and narrates their subsequent escape across the English Channel to Brittany, most of the novel chronicles their trek across the southwest of England. Traveling in...