The Furies

Humanity has always worried that nuclear weapons might destroy civilisation, but it has generally neglected the equally important question of whether they might also summon gigantic homicidal wasps. Keith Roberts corrects this strategic oversight in The Furies, a gloriously unpleasant British disaster novel in which international brinkmanship is followed by geological catastrophe, social collapse and insects large enough to regard people as manageable portions.

The trouble begins when America and Russia conduct enormous nuclear tests at the same time. The explosions rupture the seabed, trigger earthquakes and inundate great stretches of the world, including London. This would ordinarily constitute a sufficient apocalypse for one novel, but nature—or something considerably less natural—has further plans. Across the devastated English countryside appear the Furies: monstrous wasp-like creatures that attack humans and animals with organised, implacable purpose.

At the centre of events is Bill Sampson, a successful cartoonist living a pleasantly independent life in rural Wiltshire with his Great Dane, Sek. His days of drawing amusing faces and visiting the village pub end abruptly when the landscape becomes a hunting ground for airborne predators. He encounters the teenage Jane, separated from her family during the catastrophe, and together they attempt to survive a world in which the social order has vanished and the buzzing overhead is no longer a minor summer annoyance.

The Furies are not merely oversized insects behaving badly. They appear coordinated by a mysterious intelligence and begin imposing their own order upon the remains of humanity. Some survivors resist, others hide, and still others decide that collaboration with enormous wasps offers better career prospects than the collapsing human administration. Sampson is drawn into the struggle, moving through a scarred southern England of ruined towns, isolated refuges and increasingly desperate resistance.

Roberts combines the pace and cheerful destructiveness of a traditional catastrophe novel with his characteristic feeling for the English landscape. Fields, villages and chalk country are described with almost pastoral affection before being invaded, flooded or occupied by creatures capable of carrying off the inhabitants. The contrast gives the novel its peculiar power: this is not an abstract end of the world but the end of a recognisable Britain, complete with pubs, class distinctions and people attempting to remain sensible while civilisation is eaten.

First published in 1966, The Furies is an energetic mixture of nuclear nightmare, alien invasion and ecological revenge. It will appeal to admirers of John Wyndham, British apocalyptic fiction and stories in which humanity discovers that being the dominant species was apparently a temporary appointment. It also offers strong support for anyone who has always regarded wasps as evidence of a design flaw in the natural world.

This Penguin Books edition was published in 1985 and is in Good condition. The pages remain intact, the spine remains cooperative and no nest has been detected within the binding.

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