Lower Carhullan is a bright and airy country cottage, lying in the ancient market town of Bampton, Cumbria. Towards the end of the book, Jackie announces that secret government broadcasts, which she alone has managed to intercept, tell her the farm is about to be attacked by the Authority. This charming community, Bampton in the Eden District of Cumbria, is nestled in the scenic Lowther valley and within reaching distance of the River Lowether. As a fellow Cumbrian the Lake District setting obviously appealed to me, but I would query Tony’s assertion that London not playing a part demonstrates that people’s horizons have shrunk in the novel. It’s a novel that encourages people to stand up for what they believe in, and for many reasons felt quite timely.

It has the same sense of place as to be found in Alan Garner (I could easily picture where the novel is set). I should have mentioned in the post that The Carhullan Army is the original, British title, but that it was also published in the US under the title Daughters of the North. I wasn’t aware of this book before now but having recently finished The Power, I’m intrigued by another tale of an all-women community.

The Carhullan Army begins and ends in Penrith (here renamed Rith), and shows a provincial city at work (or not) after the apocalypse. The room forming a bedroom in the rear range has panelling and six-panel doors now forming a fitted cupboard and a sliding door to an ensuite. It’s a novel that provoked a wide range of responses, and it’s worth going and reading some of the reviews that Niall Harrison lists here, as well as Nick Hubble’s excellent piece from Vector 258. Photograph: Katharine Eastham/Alamy View image in fullscreen Brant slopes … Ill Bell and Kentmere reservoir as seen from Harter Fell, Cumbria. With Roberts' I can see how he got what he did from the book, though I would disagree with him (the fact I haven't read any of Hall's other books may be a factor), while the review at Strange Horizon's is country miles away from my own understanding of

Carhullen represents to the narrator a Utopia and we might be reminded of Herland - I think this is explicitly nodded to on the farm, the narrator tells Jackie that she doesn't eat red meat - a life style choice that is instantly dismissed by Jackie. Most appallingly, in this world of scant resources and hard industrial labour, the Authority insist all women should be fitted with contraceptive devices. It is accessed along a ‘no through road’ where it is situated at the very end, approximately two miles.After reading your detailed description I don't think I will venture into the book, but I did pick up on your reference to Rosemary Sutcliffe's "The Silver Branch". Cheryl Morgan talks about the ‘real date’ of the novel being around 2005, and there is something to that – Hall herself has talked about the importance of the 2005 Carlisle floods as a spur to the novel. Attractions within close reach included Haweswater Reservoir, where you will find a number of walks, as well as Keld Chapel, a National Trust property. So this is also a novel about Nature and nurture, what you were and what you can become in the right (view spoiler) [ ahem, or wrong (hide spoiler)] circumstances, and along that line I was reminded of Animal farm and 1984 while reading.

Though the novel's futurist vision is fascinating and disturbing, there's a whiff of 1970s radical feminism about Sister and her comrades. Following economic collapse, the population has been corralled into the cities of old under the guise of Civil Reorganisation although it seems to me that the main benefit to the Authority is to have the population in a defined and manageable area. The farmhouse and the barn are both depicted on the first edition 1,2500 Ordnance Survey map of 1861 with the same footprint as the present day.

Sex and gender is its focus - future catastrophe's effect upon it is really just a political and philosophical vehicle for an examination of womanhood. We check for naughty words and verify the authenticity of all guest reviews before adding them to our site.