Book description
Britannia is a land of forests - it is said a man can walk from the
walls of Eboracum to the southern sea without leaving the shade of the
greenwood - inhabited by wildcats, wolves and bears, as well as by the
descendants of the folk who built Stonehenge. Traversing the forests,
linking the Roman cities, are the straight Roman roads on which
solar-powered aircars travel from the far north of Britain to
expressways that link with London, Rome, Constantinople and beyond. In
this world Rome never fell to the Barbarians, the legions never left
Britain and now, in the late twentieth century, Rome is the capital of a
vast global civilisation. Outside Eboracum, (or York as we know it), and
dominating the city, is the Battle Dome, a vast hemisphere enclosing the
artificial landscapes where the Games - as brutal, deadly and colourful
as ever - are held. Here the destinies of three young people come
together when a jealous feud forces them to flee the Dome and take
refuge in the forest. There, Viti, Miranda, and Angus discover that the
older Britain that has endured for two millennia, where the assumptions
of rational Romans and city-dwellers no longer apply. And it is there
they find they must learn new lessons about their world - if they are to
survive. This first volume of A Land Fit for Heroes is a superb, lyrical
novel of cultures clashing in a wonderfully evoked alternate world,
filled with magic, wonder and haunting sense of place. Phillip Mann
was born in 1942 and studied English and Drama at Manchester University
and later in California. He worked in the New China News Agency in
Beijing for two years but has lived in New Zealand since 1969, working
as a theatre critic, drama teacher and university Reader in Drama. As
well as writing novels, he has written a number of plays and stories for
Radio New Zealand.
