It seems to be out of print, Alan Garner's Red Shift. Which is a shame. Its Roman Britain sections catch the utter weirdness of imperial collapse. Its glimpses into the idolization of any local egregiousness afterwards are creepy and horrifying: Delinquent & murderous nutjobs become the strange attractors of chaos. Like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, whose internalized imperial order has collapsed, they are creepy, horrifying, and terrifying.
Collapse empowers them, so strange or insane they’d never be heard from otherwise, attractive because they offer certainty in completely uncertain times.
Caveat emptor.
Collapse empowers them, so strange or insane they’d never be heard from otherwise, attractive because they offer certainty in completely uncertain times.
Caveat emptor.
