SOJALS rating:

Good (3/5)

I first read this in 1990 and most recently on the 24th March 2011

There are a few children across Britain and the USA who seem to be able to commit outrageous crimes in full view yet are not convicted, or even arrested. For some reason, they can act iwth impunity, without fear of punishment. Peter Levin, journalist and Claudia Morris, scientist, investigate these strange events and uncover a rather scary explanation.

Will it be enough just to save the world from the stupidity of governments, businesses and the people themselves that have created the environmental disaster sucking down the entire world.

That disaster may well be topped by nuclear war if no one is able to make a stand.

In this gripping, unsettling and surprisingly frank novel, Brunner returns one more to his theme of ecological disaster for a final big novel. This one however is not perhaps as a happy an ending as the previous, but it was after all written in 1980's Britain. Hardly a time for optimism and good cheer, except of course for the joyful sound of the S.O.S. Band cutting through the grimy grey of the British Isles.