Doggerland

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Jem and Greil’s attachment to the ruined wind farm is reluctant, but time seems to have blurred their vocations into an attitude of unquestioning survivalism; an unseen authority incarcerates them offshore, and like weary Robinson Crusoes stuck on a prison moon, they might as well get on with it. They

The machinery is failing – the farm’s percentage performance slipping inexorably downwards, losing several percentage points in the course of the story. The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers lived in a rich, but constantly changing world – to which they successfully adapted.He looks at the small part of the Fairland land mass that still exists: Fair Isle, a tiny island some 45 miles north of the Orkney Islands of Scotland. There is the mysterious and well-fed pilot who delivers supplies, in his electric boat, on a rather idiosyncratic schedule, and there is Jem’s father seen briefly in flashback at their moment of parting. The batteries on his boat are now dead, but a lovely sequence unfolds when he discovers the more beautiful technology of sail power – a concept lost to his electric generation.

Overall, though, I found 'Doggerland' a rather frustrating fable as I couldn’t identify what, if anything, was being allegorised. But the plot revolves around their relationship and the job they do day-in day-out for no apparent purpose as they battle with hostile weather, personal secrets and the loneliness of this odd cold watery world. This sets him on a quest to find out more and maybe make his own escape from this form of indentured servitude. Furthermore, when the Old Man uses a system of rods and T-bar to draw core samples from the seabed, what comes up is not simply soil. The Boy, who is no longer really a boy, and the Old Man, whose age is unguessable, are charged with its maintenance.Throughout the novel they face an endless battle as they try to repair the machines before they all fail.

The enigmatic Pilot, garrulous, well-fed, and self-serving illustrates the corruption in a trade system where everyone demands a profit margin. Long-forgotten gods and spirits began to stir in hidden groves and caverns and old traditions found new strength. So, when she wakes up in a hotel room next to her boss, Jounas Smeed, she knows she's made a big mistake. The narrative takes on a captivating momentum when Jem discovers, tethered to a distant turbine, his father’s old maintenance boat, which he was priming for escape.A War Transformed is a skirmish wargame set in a world where World War I was utterly changed by forces far beyond human comprehension. It is a book I can see many people loving and I hope many people will pick it up – because it is so very well done and so interestingly told. 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. As some of you may know I am currently undertaking a creative writing PhD with the catchy title Navigating the mystery of future geographies in climate change fiction.

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 way Ben Smith’s prose flows reminded me of the ocean – something that has to be intentional given that the North Sea is as much of a protagonist as the three other people in this novel.

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