BOOk review: no man's land by simon watson

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 by Simon Watson

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.