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Product Description
Product Description
Relaunch of spectacular Robert Westall fantasy novel that was way ahead of its time.
A fantasy of the near future in which Britain is divided into Zones and castes to which men and women are pitilessly allocated at the end of their schooling. Whether crazed proles in the Unnem zones, smug pampered bourgeois Ests or arrogant Techs, all are ultimately pawns of the computer that governs it all. One boy penetrates the conspiracy by which the nation is governed and has the knowhow to strike at the heart of evil.
This novel was originally published in 1983 and was runner up for the Carnegie Medal. It's a fantastic, if bleak, vision of the future – all the more scary because many of its 'Big Brother' elements are so evident in our society today.
About the Author
Robert Westall was born October 1929, in Tynemouth, England. His first book, The Machine Gunners, was published in 1975, for which he won the Carnegie Medal. Amongst many more prizes and accolades, he won the Carnegie for the second time in 1980, with The Scarecrows. He died in 1993.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first read this book when I was about 13 or so, and did not really understand it (not all at least). Now, ten years later, I read it for the third time, and I can say it's excellent reading. A touch of 1984, a bit of Brave New World... The UK is ruled by a totalitarian system, shutting of the big cities from the rest of the country, controlling them with an effective mixture of supervision and anarchy, and preventing the Unnems from disturbing the privileged Est caste. If you do not conform, you are lobotomized, end of story. The Tech caste keeps everything going, while the Paramils dispose of anyone unruly. Protagonist Henry Kitson stands between the lines: he would be an Est (which means high life without serious work), but achieved 100% in the final exam, which resulted in him being recruited by the Tech. Although he gains control over the most powerful computer - Laura - he flees to the Unnem territory, seeking to fulfill the dying wish of his mentor Idris, to kill an ominous person called Scott-Astbury. Needless to say, this gets him in lots of trouble... The book carries a latent humour (quote "his idea of fitness training seemed to be smoking a cigarette as fast as possible") as well as a more than disturbing view of the near future (at one point Bob Dylan is mentioned to be still alive, you do the math). Definitely worth reading twice, thrice, at any age, the more often you read it the more you understand.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I grew up with this book and after reading it half a dozen times at least I love it still. Obvious inspiration from classic science fiction make it all the better to read, and even study - it stood up to the critically acclaimed wieght of Orwell's '1984' and Bradbury's 'Farenheit 451' - books at the very top of their Genre, when I wrote on all three in my last year of secondary school. Kit, the brillliant, volatile and dashing main character, has more depth than your average SF hero, possibly because this book is aimed at teenagers and we aren't really satisfied with just good ideas and concepts. That said, the good ideas and concepts are there in droves, some of them very original. Whole cities being turned into squalid ghettos for the poorer classes, the separation of the very rich from the very poor becoming even more pronounced than it already is today - these ideas may not be entirley new. But Scott-Astbury and his mysterious plans for the north which dominate Kit's quest...I can't possibly reveal. But they are certainly original. Original and barbaric and morally wrong and sick and-...just go thee hither and read! Like so many books by Westall, it should be a classic of our time, but instead has been out of print for years. Take this opportunity to get it before it disappears again!
Format:Paperback
I came to this book in my mid-twenties, and I know I would have loved it when I was a teenager, although it's the kind of book that makes you feel like a teenager again.
The story is about Kit, his adventures in a future Britan where something has gone terribly wrong, and a hot chick in leather on a motorcycle.
I love this book, everyone else will love this book too!
The story is about Kit, his adventures in a future Britan where something has gone terribly wrong, and a hot chick in leather on a motorcycle.
I love this book, everyone else will love this book too!
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