Full Description
From one of the earliest feminist science fiction writers, a novel that envisions the fall of civilization—and the plight of the modern woman in a post-apocalyptic wilderness.
When war breaks out in Europe, British civilization collapses overnight. The ironically named protagonist must learn to survive by his wits in a new Britain. When we first meet Savage, he is a complacent civil servant, primarily concerned with romancing his girlfriend. During the brief war, in which both sides use population displacement as a terrible strategic weapon, Savage must battle his fellow countrymen. He shacks up with an ignorant young woman in a forest hut—a kind of inverse Garden of Eden, where no one is happy. Eventually, he sets off in search of other survivors . . . only to discover a primitive society where science and technology have come to be regarded with superstitious awe and terror. A pioneering feminist, Hamilton offers a warning about the degraded state of modern women, who—being "unhandy, unresourceful, superficial"—would suffer a particularly sad fate in a postapocalyptic social order.
Contents
Series Foreword vii
Introduction: "The Wars of the Air and the Laboratory": Theodore Savage at 100 xiii
Susan R. Grayzel
I 1
II 13
III 23
IV 37
V 43
VI 61
VII 77
VIII 89
IX 99
X 107
XI 117
XII 127
XIII 135
XIV 149
XV 157
XVI 165
XVII 175
XVIII 181
XIX 197
XX 203
XXI 213
XXII 225
XXIII 237
