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The Chalk Giants |
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One of
the author's major works of science fiction, created by assembling a striking
sequence of novelettes into a coherent whole. An impressive work second only,
perhaps, to Pavane. Out of print now for many years, first editions are
very difficult to find, paperbacks come on the market occasionally.
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DUSTJACKET BLURB: It is the eve of twentieth-century man's
final conflict. But Stan Potts is ready for Armageddon In his Austin Champ,
specially equipped with his own unique survival kit, he heads for Corfe Castle,
the Purbecks and the girl of his dreams. It is to be an eventful journey This
latest and most ambitious novel by Keith Roberts is both the story of one
lonely man and a compulsively readable account of a civilisation's catastrophe,
and the clawing-up to a new social order. Across Potts' gaze pass the ravaged
survivors; the mutant genius born outside his time; the villagers of the new
stone age with their credulous, sexually complex lives; the iron age horsemen;
the terror of the sea-borne marauders Until finally, after the pillage, the
cruelty of superstition, the fragility of love and its horrific consequences,
the story leaps from the Dark Ages into a new awareness. And Stan Potts' tale
is told. Dream or reality? Future or racial memory? Forecast or myth? Every
reader will pass his own verdict on this unique and challenging book. But all
will agree that The Chalk Giants is first and last a stunning feat of
story telling, a worthy successor to Pavane and The Boat of Fate
by an acknowledged master of the genre.
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| FIRST EDITION: Hutchinson & Co, London, 1974 |
