Ladies from Hell

Ladies from Hell contains five long stories. " The Shack at Great Cross Halt" describes a Britain dominated by motorways, juggernauts and a tyranny, in which the unfortunates of society eke out a miserable existence scavenging items that fall off lorries. " The Ministry of Children" shows comprehensive schools having become terrifying battlegrounds dominated by vicious gangs. " The Big Fans" concerns an experiment in wind-powered electricity which accidentally unleashes an apocalyptic storm of effects. " Our Lady of Destruction" ironically depicts a future in which a Stalinist British government taxes 'non-productive' people (i. e. artists) at over 100% and assigns them individual Overseers to regulate their work. " Missa Privata" shows an opera singer in a communist-dominated Britain making a defiant individual gesture which will bring about her own ruin. These are not stories of spaceships and alien worlds; rather they are studies of imminent social change, written out of passionate concern about the directions in which our society may be heading - stories, in fact, in the great Orwellian tradition. Most importantly, they are stories about people: believable, defiant individuals struggling against oppressive forces.