All Reviews by Benjamin
Refuge
by Richard Herley
When this novel first came to my attention, I was excited, since Richard Herley had already authored one of my favorite books, the outstanding The Penal Colony. Then, when I read the blurb and realized what Refuge was about, I admit my excitement faltered a bit. I felt the post-apocalyptic, I'm-the-last-man-on-Earth survival milieu had already been pretty well strip-mined in a hundred works ranging from I Am Legend to Children of Men to The Stand, and I thought it would be difficult for an author to come along in 2008 and give the genre a treatment that was anything other than derivative and tired.
Happily, I was wrong. Herley immediately puts his stamp on the proceedings, much as he does in his other works, with concise, economical detail, great pacing, and a level of research and thinking-through that leaves the reader wondering why other novelists didn’t think of these things. His chops as a writer are simply amazing - several wide cuts above the average writer of popular fiction. Several themes from Herley’s other works are revisited here, most notably the villains’ Christian/Satanic delusions and the protagonists’ struggles for survival in a wild, uncaring natural world, but it’s a very different novel to The Penal Colony.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough. If you like brainy, propulsive thrillers with characters who are complex, flawed and not always easy to love, this is the book for you. And as the book is available for free download (with donations accepted via the honor system) on Feedbooks, Manybooks, or his own website, www.richardherley.com, there’s no excuse not to.
The Penal Colony
by Richard Herley
The first time I read The Penal Colony was 1998 or so; I spotted a well-used paperback copy in a pile of abandoned belongings at a college dormitory. I took it, began to read, and was instantly absorbed. I was blown away by the story, the characters, and through it all the language: sometimes sharp and precise, other times poetic, always compelling and memorable. I consider myself a fairly well-read person, in terms of classic literature as well as modern best-sellers, and without hesitation, I put The Penal Colony on my "Desert Island List" of ten books that I would take with me to my own exile on Sert.
Up until a few years ago, this book was hard to find: out of print (at least in the USA), and precious little information available on the internet. Now it's here, easy and inexpensive to download, and it's an absolute gem of a book. The ideas, situations and characters will stay with you for life.