Hell's Ditch (The Black Road) Paperback – 1 Mar. 2016

In life as well as fiction there are no absolutes, there is no black and white, yes or no, and when it comes to war there isn’t even any real heroes or villains, all you have, are the differing viewpoints of those fighting the war, with each side adamant that they are righteous and the good guys. It all comes down to whose viewpoint is correct. War like life is just a shade of grey.It’s one of the many themes that Simon Bestwick’s excellent return to novel writing explores. Hell’s Ditch is a brutal and unrelenting post-apocalyptic dystopian adventure novel that manages to entertain and enlighten in equal measures.The United Kingdom is in ruins, in the aftermath of a nuclear war the country is in devastated. Those who survived face a hard life, food is scarce, shelter is at best barren and dirty, and their every move is being scrutinized and policed by a fascist military power and their shock Troops The Reapers. Fighting the good fight is an underground resistance movement, but they are ragged, battle-weary and deeply undermanned and under equipped.However when a fabled warrior “returns from the dead” their hopes at victory are raised is the tide turning for the resistance or will Helen Damnation ( you have got to love that name) lead them to her namesake or will she lead them to redemption?Hell’s Ditch is a deeply complex novel that forces the reader to face up to many truths about the horrors of war. The grimy and dirty narrative perfectly captures the horrible nature of a resistance war of attrition. Bestwick’s descriptive passages of the ruined landscape are truly evocative the sights, smells and screams of the narrative and it’s setting will imprint in your subconscious, with images of trench warfare from World War One coming to fore with a ruined no man’s land feel to the world. It is a living and breathing landscape that serves as the perfect canvas for Bestwick to paint his wonderfully complex characters onto.One of many strong points of this novel is the way in which the lead characters have been crafted to mirror and mimic each other with Tereus Winterborn and Helen Damnation squaring up against each other. On one side, you have the neo-Nazi totalitarian regime that will stop at nothing to achieve their goal of total domination of the country’s survivors. Their methods are extreme, mass executions in response to any activity from the Resistance, the use of specialized shock troops, and like the Nazi’s of WW2 genetic experiments and research into the Occult. However, unlike their real world counterparts they have been successful.And yet, in their eyes they are the ones on the side of right, and it is the resistance that are on the side of evil. Which you could be forgiven for thinking was true, especially in the case of Helen Damnation. She is a driven woman, her story is more personal than many of the other members of the Resistance, she is driven to the extreme which despite her good intentions, has her acting in ways that are very similar to those of the Reapers. Despite all the mass executions that occur every time she makes a move against them, she continues headlong and headstrong to her own endgame. It is this lack of purely black and white characters that makes this such a powerful novel, Bestwick forces the reader to questions their own feelings on the morality of war. The line between freedom fighter and terrorist is blurred magnificently in this novel.Another highlight of the characterization is the fact that the only character who even comes close to being a purebred hero is the genetically modified warrior Gevaudan Shoal. He is the last of the super-soldiers known as Grendelwolves, a breed of altered humans who are infinitely stronger than normal humans, immune to pain, and capable of regenerating from almost any wound. These vicious warriors were used in the last great uprising and their legend and still lives one. In many ways, Gevauden resembles Frankenstein’s monster, yes he has committed untold atrocities, but he is a victim of his masters making, and he has succeeded in finding solace and redemption in the aftermath of the great uprising. He is a noble old soul and a character that the reader will automatically connect with and feel for.While reading Hell's Ditch I couldn't help but be reminded of such classics as Blakes 7, Bestwick's novel shares many similar themes of flawed heroes battling tyrannical regimes. It also conjures up memories of the Dr Who classic Genesis of the Daleks, and despite the greatness of these two shows, Hell's Ditch is more than capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with these two giants of dystopian storytelling.Throughout Hell's Ditch's narrative Bestwick wears his heart firmly on his sleeve, his views on war, fascism are presented in a heartfelt, and articulate way, without every becoming preachy, or disruptive the flow of the story with soapbox ranting. This is an intelligent novel that works as both a simple post-apocalyptic horror novel and as a deeper more engaging moral ambiguity of war. A perfect mix of action, horror, Celtic mythology and clever discourse on the human condition, Hell's Ditch will not disappoint.Hell's Ditch is the first installment of The Black Road quadrilogy, and based on the brilliance of this novel, it is a road that I cannot wait to journey along.

’ve probably mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again anyway, I’m hopelessly drawn to apocalyptic fiction. I don’t think I can fully explain why, but I always find it utterly fascinating. Perhaps it is the idea of humanity ending in its current form? I don’t know. Hell’s Ditch by Simon Bestwick is the latest cataclysm to gain my attentionThe end of the world as we know it is not a pretty affair and Bestwick doesn’t sugar coat a thing. Britain is royally screwed by the time the narrative picks up. Twenty years after a brutal war, what is left of the population is scattered across the country. In the cities that still just about function, survivors are barely existing. Living on top of one another in shanty towns and refugee camps, the populace is controlled by a fascist like police force, known as The Reapers.Elsewhere, biological and radioactive incidents have left vast swathes of the countryside no-go areas. Various gangs/tribes have started to devolve into something that is no longer quite human. A generation of children are growing up blissfully ignorant of how the world used to be. To them violence, sickness and death are the norm. It’s an interesting juxtaposition. The older characters mourn the loss of humanity, while their younger allies are far more accepting. To the youngsters the world just is what it is. They seem far better equipped to take things in their stride, they can’t mourn for what they don’t know.Helen Damnation (wonderful name) traverses the wastelands of the UK haunted by the ghosts of her family. Fuelled by the prospect of revenge against The Reapers and their commander, there is a steely resolve within that keeps her going irrespective of the obstacles in her way. Her determination feels almost palpable. Whenever she falls, she picks herself up, dusts herself off and gets back to the task in hand.Danny is another interesting character. Not quite fully grown, he exists in that awkward space between childhood and the adult he is destined to become. The evolution he experiences as he learns firstly how to be a soldier and then a leader is fascinating to watch. Especially at the point when you realise even after everything he suffers through he is still incredibly young. I can guarantee I would never have been able to survive his life experiences when I was that age, or even now come to think of it.For me, the best villains are always those who don’t see themselves as villains at all. They feel entirely justified in their actions. Commander Tereus Winterborn is utterly convinced of his righteousness. Every action he takes is a measured response, designed to wipe out opposition and ensure his continued control. For him it is deceptively simple – everyone else is wrong and he is right. In an effort to try save those who are willing to follow his lead, Winterborn is placing his faith in science.Dr Mordake, the brains behind Project Tindalos, is attempting to harness the powers of an ancient civilisation in an effort to reverse the damage that has been done. Unfortunately for him, and everyone else, his research is not going to evolve in quite the manner he had hoped. This thread of the narrative really allows Bestwick to flex his creative muscles. There is an air of cosmic unworldliness surrounding the work Mordake is doing. Inexplicable events are starting to manifest around the research lab and there are going to be consequences. Putting it bluntly, things get weirder and weirder. Watching all this weirdness unfold is a real highlight and great fun.The final character I really enjoyed was Gevaudan Shoal. I’m going to remain purposefully tight lipped in this case however. I feel he is best experienced without any prior knowledge. Suffice to say he was the icing on this apocalyptic cake.Thinking about it, all the characters are broken in one way or another. They all crave something that they are unlikely to ever achieve. Winterborn wants total power by any means necessary, Danny wants a world radically different from the one he grew up in. Helen wants blissful peace, while Shoal and Mordake all want to be with people they can no longer be with. If feels almost like everyone is experiencing their own personal version of Hell. Perhaps that’s kind of the point? The end of humanity will be experienced differently, and uniquely, by everyone.Add some unexpectedly grotesque body horror* into the mix and you have a novel that happily presses every single one of my apocalyptic fiction buttons. Darkly entertaining and hugely ambitious in scope I think I’ll be adding this book to my list of go to apocalyptic fiction.Tonally I felt that Hell’s Ditch shares a similar heritage as The Black Dawn duology by Joseph D’Lacey. Both narratives pick apart the horror of apocalyptic events, but also delve far deeper into the nature of humanity. They explore the primal fears that drive a society towards its own destruction.I look forward to discovering where The Black Road series will take us next. Hell’s Ditch is published by Snow Books and is available from 1st December. A sequel will follow in the future, how very splendid.*Honestly, properly icky. It made me make the noise “Euuuwww” out loud. That’s always a good sign in my opinion.

Set twenty years into the future, after an apocalypse has decimated the earth, this follows rebel Helen Damnation who is fighting against the powers-that-be, led by Winterborn, an old adversary. Things already look bleak - the Reapers govern by brutal force and the general populous is dying of disease and starvation - but when the rebels hear of Project Tindalos, it seems like things are going to get a lot worse. Read for a critique, this is very different to Simon’s usual milieu and not a sub-genre that I’m well-versed in but having said that, it’s up to his usual high standards and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Placing the POV over a small cast - Helen, Danny a young soldier, Alannah and Gevaudan, a Grendelwolf - he paints a quick but thorough picture of the world, piles on the atmosphere and dread and never skimps on the nasty stuff - especially the fall-out of Tindalos itself. The first book in a proposed trilogy, I enjoyed it a lot and would highly recommend it.