Also included bonus pic of sister with spaniel, and some cheeky avian punters who got on without paying. Smith injects his characters with so much heart you’d have to be made of stone not to fall for them.

He examines evidence of Doggerland’s high-temperature technology, showing how its people were able to melt solid rock to create vitrified structures far stronger than concrete, a technique that modern science cannot replicate.I accept that frustrating his readers may have been an intentional choice but for me, despite it being a thought-provoking story, Doggerland’s lack of progression and character development means it’s a novel I will likely only read once That being said I would never discourage anyone from reading the novel and drawing their own conclusions. Vague suggestions of the wider world now controlled by ‘the Company’ and an occasional word in Mandarin are the few hints provided. Sentences are frequently curt, communicating only what they need to, but there are moments of levity too, most of which come from the old man’s ornery attitude towards the owner of the supply boat. At the end of the last Ice Age, the first modern humans also left their traces here, including the famous Leman-and-Ower-Banks spearhead – the first documented Doggerland find – and some of the oldest art in the region. What exactly happened remains unclear but, together with the Boy, we glean some disturbing details along the way – in this regard, Smith takes a page out of dystopian post-apocalyptic fiction, and suggests that society has been taken over by some sort of totalitarian regime of whom the Boy’s father was, presumably, a victim.

The legal obligation that binds Jem to fil his father’s place is not only indentured service, but a hereditary one akin to slavery without any mention of pay, or shore leave. The combination of imagination, linguistic precision and the theme of harsh struggle in an unforgiving environment makes it a little reminiscent of Cynan Jones, but the whole thing is rather impressive. Doggerland is a compelling, finely crafted novel about isolation, selflessness and hope in hopeless circumstances. And, barely noticeable, somewhere in the middle of this cycle, plants and animals and people made this place their home” (p. This involves reading and watching a lot of climate change fiction (cli-fi) and the Fantasy-Hive have kindly given me space for a (very) occasional series of articles where I can share my thoughts and observations.

It's been a great reading month for me, with a couple of ARC eBooks thrown in for good measure too (Rebecca Roanhorse's Black Sun and Stephen Deas' The Moonsteel Crown). This sets him on a quest to find out more and maybe make his own escape from this form of indentured servitude. Compelled, conscripted even, to work alongside his dad’s co-worker – the Old Man – Jem’s life is one of dull drudgery trying to keep decaying machinery functioning.

Reflecting on the perpetual noise of their environment as they take a lift up the shaft of a turbine. The pilot also draws a somewhat semantic distinction between the “messiness” of need and the potential hard feelings at unsatisfied needs, as compared to the more desirable idea of “want” which keeps exchanges “businesslike. A scientific exploration of the advanced ancient civilization known as Doggerland or Fairland that disappeared 5,000 years ago. Can it be that this young man really remembers so little of his past and has so little curiosity about the wider world? Ben Smith's writing is incredibly precise; working with a restricted palette of steel greys and flaking blues, he paints the boundaried seascape with vivid detail.The monotony of the routine is only broken by occasional visits of the Supply Boat and its talkative “Pilot”, who is the only link with what remains of the ‘mainland’. It is a dystopian vision and Jon Raymond author of Denial (2022) observed that dystopian visions “ maybe at one time served a purpose, but at this point, have come to seem just like a wish fulfilment fantasy to me, or some sort of death trip” (Raymond, 2022). The Pilot on his supply boat exists as a plot necessity so that our two main characters don’t starve to death, but it is never explained why they don’t try to take advantage of this singular lifeline. A breathlessly exciting account of the storm itself very nearly eclipses it in terms of memorability, making it very difficult to choose a highlight in this deftly constructed novel.