Science Fiction Book Review: The Furies by Keith Roberts

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I've just finished reading a pretty good alien invasion/post-apocalyptic novel. "The Furies" was the first novel by Keith Roberts, a British writer who wen on to have a pretty good reputation. I think this is the first of his stories that I've read, although I can't be sure. First published in 1966, my copy was printed in 1975. The story is set in the south of England, which made it particularly interesting to me. I live further north, but my family used to go to the south coast for our holidays every summer when I was a kid, which made it easier for me to picture the areas being described. The hero of the novel is Bill Sampson. At the beginning of the story, he's making a good living as a cartoonist, earning enough money so he can afford a nice house in the countryside, near the village of Brockledean in Wiltshire. He lives a quiet bachelor life there and seems contented enough. But in the background, two types of trouble are building up. First, the collapse of a nuclear test ban treaty has led to America and Russia getting into an irresponsible race to test bigger and bigger nuclear weapons. Second, isolated stories start to appear in the press about people being attacked by giant wasps, each one about three feet long, with stings that can pierce a person's body like a bayonet. The tales of giant wasps aren't taken too seriously at first - but then a swarm of these creatures attacks a town, killing many people. And then America and Russia explode the biggers hydrogen bombs yet, almost at the same time - and the blasts triggr worldwide earthquakes, even in Britian, which is uusally very stable. On the day of the tests, and the massive earthquakes, these giant wasps - nicknamed "Furies" - attack on a global scale, causing widespread casualties. Although they resemble wasps, they're clearly guided by some kind of intelligence, because they know to target military unites, communication centres and utilities in particular, causing a rapid collapse of organised society and effective resistance. As previously noted, the Furies have stingers that can stab you like a bayonet and fill you with venom into the bargain. They also have exoskeletons that are bullet resistance and a tendency to swamp their victims with numbers. Almost the only way to stop them is with a flame thrower. Bill is lucky enough to acquire an armoured car and flame thrower from an army camp that has been wiped out by the Furies, and he meets up with an army officer who has an armoured car of his own, him and his crew being the only survivors of a battle with the Furies. Forming a convoy of two vehicles, Bill the army men, Bill's dog and a teenage girl that he's protecting try to make their way to the coast. The idea is to try to get to an offshore island, which the Furies may not be able to reach. Between the torn up landscape and attacks by the Furies, Bill is forcibly separated from his companions and ends up being a prisoner of the Furies. The Furies are rounding up able-bodied civilians and putting them in camps, for reasons that are not immediately clear. There, Bill meets Gregg, a natural leader, and Pete, a young woman who has been badly scarred in a Fury attack which also wiped out her family. Pete suffers from self-esteem issues due to problems in her life before the invasion, and has been further traumatised by the death of her family. She has a fanatical hatred of the Furies, and it becomes clear during the course of the story that she actually has a death wish. Gregg organises an escape from the camp, taking Bill, Pete and others to a cave he knows, his pre-invasion hobby having been caving. Looting food from the abandoned towns in the area, the group establish a somewhat safe colony in the caves. While this is going on, the Furies have been establishing their own colonies, huge nests the size of cities, where they breed. It emerges that the Furies need their human prisoners to service these nests, growing food and supplying them with power for light and heat. Although the Furies are clearly intelligent, they're not tool users and have almost no knowledge of technology, so in this respect they're dependent on their human slaves. Once they've established their colony, Gregg persuades the other escapees to start fighting back against the Furies, so they start waging a guerrilla campaign. The Furies' nests are made out of wood pulp, and they catch fire really easily if an attacker can get close enough with petrol bombs. The trick is to get close enough and then to get away without being caught - because if you get caught by the Furies in the open, you don't have much chance of survival. The guerrillas have some success at first, but the Furies are capable of learnign and adapting their defensive tactics, so the situation does become more perilous for our heroes. I found this to be quite a good read. Although the basic idea seems ludicrous, events move logically within the story. There's a lot of action, but there's also just as much focus on the psychology of the characters, and the emotional toll that's been taken on them by the catastrophic events that they're struggling to live through. The characters are flawed and the Furies have a logical set of strengths and weaknesses. I won't give away the ending, but the resolution of the plot flows logically from the very nature of the form that the Furies have adopted. I found it very reminiscent of the kind of post-catastrophe fiction that John Wyndham was known for, so if you like "The Day of the Triffids" you'll probably like this book.