DUSTJACKET BLURB: Keith Roberts is one of Britain's most
distinguished science fiction writers, author of such novels as Pavane, The
Furies and The Chalk Giants. Nowhere are his talents better displayed, however,
than in his short fiction, and we are delighted to welcome him to the Gollancz
list with this collection. Ladies From Hell contains five long stories.
"The Shack at Great Cross Halt" describes a Britain dominated by
motorways, juggernauts and a tyranny, in which the unfortunates of society eke
out a miserable existence scavenging items which fall off lorries. "The
Ministry of Children" shows comprehensive schools having become terrifying
battlegrounds dominated by vicious gangs. "The Big Fans" concerns an
experiment in wind-powered electricity which accidentally unleashes an
apocalyptic storm of effects. "Our Lady of Desperation" ironically
depicts a future in which a Stalinist British government taxes 'non-productive'
people (i.e. artists) at over 100% and assigns them individual Overseers to
regulate their work. And "Missa Privata" shows an opera singer in a
communist-dominated Britain making a defiant individual gesture which will
bring about her own ruin. These are not stories of spaceships and alien worlds;
rather they are studies of imminent social change, written out of passionate
concern about the directions in which our society may be heading— stories,
in fact, in the great Orwellian tradition. Most importantly, they are stories
about people: believable, defiant individuals struggling against oppressive
forces.
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