Treacle Walker is a short novel by Alan Garner, the English author of esteemed novels such as Elidor, The Owl Service and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, and is a blend of folklore, magic and myth, exploring time and the nature of reality.

Joseph (Joe) Coppock is a boy who lives alone in an old house. From the house, Joe marks the passing of time by watching trains pass, and reads comics, collects bird’s eggs and plays with marbles. Joe is recovering from an illness and wears a patch to correct a lazy eye.
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Into Joe’s lonely life comes rag-and-bone man Treacle Walker. Treacle Walker trades a cure-all medicine and a donkey stone for a pair of Joe’s pyjamas and a lamb’s shoulder blade. Treacle Walker himself is an almost shamanic figure and is once referred to as a psychopomp, a guide for nearly deceased souls. The story develops through the friendship between Joe and Treacle Walker, and their interactions with Thin Amren, a mysterious figure with shades of Tollund Man and Lindow Man. 

Set in a Cheshire landscape infused with meaning, the style of the novel is spare and taut, with a sense of every word being chosen with immense care, and at times the book felt to me more akin to poetry. Magic permeates the story, digging deeply into folklore. There are shifts in time, with the appearance of a doppelganger an especially unsettling moment. Garner moves away from conventional narrative, for example the dazzling, dizzying scenes when Joe enters a mirror-world of comic books, fighting foes alongside Kit the Ancient, fusing the modern medium of comic books with myth.
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Treacle Walker is an allusive, challenging read, one that is not easy to categorise but I feel this intense novel carries real power and brims with energy and imagination. Treacle Walker would, I’m sure, reward repeat reading to tease out some of the details and it is a novel to which I’m sure I’ll return. 

Set in a future England, No Man’s Land is a curious and fascinating SF novel. The main character is teenager Alan, who lives with his family in the coastal village of Hamerburgh, an idyllic and gentle place of woods, orchards and dunes, and with a prominent landmark known as the Keep, the remains of a 900-year-old castle, but trouble is looming...

Hamerburgh is due to be ‘rationalised’ and most of the villagers have already left. Alan’s friend, the old General, who is the guardian of the Keep, and who is being forced to move to a Welfare Home, entrusts him with the keys. Soon, Alan’s family abandon Hamerburgh for a modern flat in the vast concrete city of Easton. Alan feels lost in his soulless grey surroundings and begins to make regular return visits to his former village to explore his old haunts and to visit the Keep. Hamerburgh is now deserted, but Alan is shocked to find the General has escaped the clutches of the authorities and still lives secretly in the village.

​The General is far from safe, as danger takes the shape of Giant, a nightmarish robot of terrifying size built by the authorities to clear land for rationalization with formidable speed. And Giant has Hamerburgh in his sights…

No Man’s Land is a carefully paced, thoughtful novel focused more on character and themes than action, though there is definite excitement in the closing stages. Watson takes the time to portray the beauty of Hamerburgh (a village I guess is based on Orford in Suffolk) underlying what will be lost once rationalisation has taken place. Alan is a well-developed character, whose appreciation for the natural world and the human history represented by the Keep, sees him marked as unusual, even a risk. Giant appears to represent the cold, remorseless drive to standardise and control, to view nature simply as a resource to be exploited or to be swept aside, with culture and history just meaningless impediments to progress.

Written in the 1970s, the story and its themes still resonate strongly, as swathes of the English countryside continues to disappear under brick and concrete in the name of progress, and society struggles to offer adequate care for older people, in the worst instances robbing them of agency and dignity.

I’ve tried and failed to find out more about the author Simon Watson, and I don’t believe No Man’s Land is currently in print, though secondhand copies are available (I read the 1977 Puffin Books' edition) and it is well-worth tracking down. In some ways, No Man's Land reminded me of the novels of John Christopher, another author whose work I've long enjoyed and who has definitely been an influence on my own writing.

No Man’s Land is a quietly powerful slice of British SF and deserves to be read and remembered. 

Survival is insufficient.

Station Eleven is a post-apocalyptic novel set during and after the ‘Georgia Flu’ pandemic, which kills 99% of humanity and leads to a widespread collapse of civilization.

The novel starts with the death of famous actor Arthur Leander, who suffers a fatal heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear in Toronto. Leander’s sudden death comes just as the pandemic is beginning to strike North America.

Station Eleven moves between the past and the future, connecting key characters through their relationship with Leander. In particular, the story follows Kirsten Raymonde, who was a child actor in Leander’s fateful King Lear. In the world shattered by the Georgia Flu, Raymonde performs in the Travelling Symphony, a nomadic collection of actors and musicians who strive to keep art and culture alive for the many scattered communities. The motto for the Travelling Circus is Survival is insufficient, which underlines one of the novels key themes, namely the value, the necessity, of art and community for humanity.

Miranda Carroll, Leander’s first wife, is a fascinating character. Her obsession with creating her graphic novel – the titular Station Eleven – reflects both her loneliness and her appreciation of the beauty of Earth and the joys of human society. Carroll’s graphic novel forms a metaphor for the suffering and struggles of the survivors of the pandemic.

The novel’s complex structure is no gimmick but a highly effective method for giving insights into the characters and developing the plot, building genuine suspense and adding layers of meaning. And throughout, Mandel’s prose creates a prevailing dreamy, poetic atmosphere.

Although Station Eleven is far from a standard post-apocalyptic novel, there are genuine horrors in the book as humanity reels from the pandemic, such as a murderous cult inspired by a fanatical prophet. I found the chapters where Jeevan Chaudhary seeks refuge with his brother Frank especially chilling, as they witness the relentless breakdown of Toronto to desperation and violence, and the eerie silence that follows, and clearly this grim scene is being repeated across the world. The bonds holding together civilisation are thin.

Although often haunting and unsettling, I believe Station Eleven to be an ultimately hopeful novel. It doesn’t shy away from the enormous loss and suffering inflicted by the pandemic, nor the appalling struggles endured by the survivors as they try to build lives out of the wreckage of civilization. But Mandel stresses how art, culture and community are necessary for humanity to endure. Station Eleven prompts us to remember and be grateful for the beauty of the world around us and the values of the connections we share with other people.

Survival is insufficient.