It's the eve of the 20th-century's final conflict. But Stan Potts is ready for Armageddon. In his Austin Champ, specially equipped with his own unique survival kit, he heads for Corfe Castle, the Purbecks & the girl of his dreams. It's to be an eventful journey. This latest & most ambitious novel by Keith Roberts is both the story of one lonely man & a compulsively readable account of a civilisation's catastrophe & the clawing-up to a new social order. Across Potts' gaze pass the ravaged survivors; the mutant genius born outside his time; the villagers of the new stone age with their credulous, sexually complex lives; the iron age horsemen; the terror of the sea-borne marauders. Finally, after the pillage, the cruelty of superstition, the fragility of love & its horrific consequences, the story leaps from the Dark Ages into a new awareness & Stan Potts' tale is told. Dream or reality? Future or racial memory? Forecast or myth? Every reader will pass his own verdict on this uniquely challenging book. But all will agree that The Chalk Giants is 1st & last a stunning feat of story telling, a worthy successor to Pavane & The Boat of Fate by an acknowledged master of the genre.
