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Die Kreide-Riesen
signed by the author 1st Bastei Lubbe 1981 German edition paperback vg++ to fine In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
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First published January 1, 1974
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 15, 2009
Keith Roberts’ The Chalk Giants is not so much a novel, but a collection of linked novellas. This linkage, in the edition I read, is slight, involving a returning fertility goddess. How these links are harmonized, is a bit muddy. On one hand, it may be better to take the stories as stand alone efforts, but what you lose with that approach is Roberts’ sense of History as a Wheel of Time, endlessly repeating itself (even with the nuclear possibility). And if you take a step back, you will see the rise and fall of religions, kingdoms, and peoples. It’s not a pretty sight, as death and cruelty are commonplace. There’s also a fair amount of sex, including rapes, and strong hints of incest. However, such outrages are never done in a gratuitous way, but are a part of Roberts’ often brutal but realistic fictional landscape. Where the elevation comes, is in Roberts’ use of language, which is often darkly poetic. You will find in these stories fully developed characters, which includes abusive priests, heroes, a philosopher king, a mad king, a calculating court fool, and a returning female figure that can be both kind and cruel. The range of the stories is impressive, opening with the Post-Apocalyptic “Monkey, Pru, and Sal”, followed by the Gilgamesh-like (“God House” and “The Beautiful One”), the Norse (“Rand, Rat, and the Dancing Man”), and closing with the very Lear-like “Usk the Jokeman.” The Chalk Gods definitely follows an historic arc that is both tragic and beautiful. And the beauty is found in the characters – for whatever their shortcomings, they are never less than human. Roberts is a writer I want to read more of.
One note on editions: My edition omits a framing story (and I believe another story as well), involving a man dreaming of a coming nuclear apocalypse. So beware the 1973 Berkley Putnam edition. I thought about rating this book 4 stars because of this, but the quality of what I did read was so high, than anything less than 5 stars seemed wrong.
One note on editions: My edition omits a framing story (and I believe another story as well), involving a man dreaming of a coming nuclear apocalypse. So beware the 1973 Berkley Putnam edition. I thought about rating this book 4 stars because of this, but the quality of what I did read was so high, than anything less than 5 stars seemed wrong.
May 26, 2026
In Keith Roberts’ writing you will encounter the beauty and horror of open spaces. He takes us to the expansive neolithic fields of Wiltshire, where in the distance his protagonists glimpse the chalk mounds of Silbury Hill. These wind-swept mounds harbor ghosts of a past lost to the whispers of legend. Into this forgotten lore, Roberts beckons us toward a world of gods who breathe life into the grain, call rain to the spring, and bring forth a red sun bursting through the white shrouds of winter. Across the great heath and the villages scattered among the plains, we venture deep into the forests and marshes, where unknown forms linger and do strange things to appease their gods.
The Chalk Giants, like Pavane, is a series of variations on a theme of time and place. Where Pavane is static in its locale, The Chalk Giants hurtles through phases of history while the thematic pulse driving each narrative pounds a drum of guilt and suffering. Each story builds a historical arc that lapses between the present, the ultimate post-apocalyptic wasteland of the future, and the rich past of old - where Roberts shines like no other writer, leading us from paganism to the dawn of Christianity.
The novel opens with The Sun Over a Low Hill, a framing narrative that establishes its central themes. Some argue that this was not necessary, but the writing more than justifies its existence. There is also an allusion here to the paintings of Paul Nash, and Roberts was clearly intentional about this. As the reader encounters the wheel of time grinding on throughout the work, it helps to view Nash's paintings - particularly Solstice of the Sunflower and The Eclipse of the Sunflower. Nash was alert to the horrors of the 20th century and juxtaposed that modern flesh wound with the beauty and cruelty of nature, pervading in a perennial gestalt across the epochs.
In The God House, Roberts recounts the events leading to the creation of the Cerne Abbas Giant hill figure in Dorset. A girl named Mata lives in a small village neighboring the chalk cliffs that overlook the English Channel. In a coming-of-age tragedy, Mata bears witness to the practices of her people at the advent of spring. The chief priest of the village, parading as the Grain King, takes a young girl from the village each year for ritualistic pleasure in a sacred hut on a chalk mound. Mata is selected for grooming and undergoes a process of sexual preparation at the hands of one of the older women. Her experience in the hut is unforgettable and is also the inspiration of the strange but wonderful Peter Jones cover on the 1975 Panther edition.
Roberts has the skill to compose legend upon command. In Usk the Jokesman, his gift is on full display in a Shakespearean composition that tells the tale of a late king who believes his purchased wife is a goddess. He adorns her with riches, believes she has allowed him to become the grain, the rivers, the very chalk outlining its mysterious forms in the hills. The story plummets into tragedy with a stunning beauty I cannot adequately put into words.
Each story is a masterpiece that neighbors the hand of Mervyn Peake in its ability to feel a place, to live inside of it. The locale and character here affect you deeply and reverberate long after the pages close.
I am no writer, and language fails me when I try to describe how arresting this work is. It is a mosaic of a forgotten time, conjured to the page with such skill that we find ourselves sitting beside an old hearth - snapping logs send sparks behind our closed eyes, the wind flows busy among necklaces of goats, sounding their wooden bells - and all along the way you are aware of a great, unfathomable mystery, as priests and gods awaken their rituals in the night and the chalk figures fade in and out as the moon glowers over their forms.
Keith Roberts was an unsung genius. It's a shame that the NYRB did not get hold of his lesser known works, which is really everything but Pavane. His ability to detach himself from contemporary world views is something very few writers can claim. His ideas are original, drawn from a pagan-laced web of dreams that bubble to the surface of the modern day only to evaporate into forgotten dust. The critical frameworks needed to analyze these stories are starting to culturally disappear - and this, in turn, is precisely what makes them special, perhaps even treasured. Every serious reader should explore his work. He was among the rare few who could use the ideas of genre fiction to accomplish staggering artistic achievements.
P.S. - Avoid the 1975 G. P. Putnam's Sons and the 1976 Berkley Medallion edition. They both omit Keith's framing story, which was uncalled for. The UK versions are a bit tricky to track down but with some patience it will find you.
The Chalk Giants, like Pavane, is a series of variations on a theme of time and place. Where Pavane is static in its locale, The Chalk Giants hurtles through phases of history while the thematic pulse driving each narrative pounds a drum of guilt and suffering. Each story builds a historical arc that lapses between the present, the ultimate post-apocalyptic wasteland of the future, and the rich past of old - where Roberts shines like no other writer, leading us from paganism to the dawn of Christianity.
The novel opens with The Sun Over a Low Hill, a framing narrative that establishes its central themes. Some argue that this was not necessary, but the writing more than justifies its existence. There is also an allusion here to the paintings of Paul Nash, and Roberts was clearly intentional about this. As the reader encounters the wheel of time grinding on throughout the work, it helps to view Nash's paintings - particularly Solstice of the Sunflower and The Eclipse of the Sunflower. Nash was alert to the horrors of the 20th century and juxtaposed that modern flesh wound with the beauty and cruelty of nature, pervading in a perennial gestalt across the epochs.
In The God House, Roberts recounts the events leading to the creation of the Cerne Abbas Giant hill figure in Dorset. A girl named Mata lives in a small village neighboring the chalk cliffs that overlook the English Channel. In a coming-of-age tragedy, Mata bears witness to the practices of her people at the advent of spring. The chief priest of the village, parading as the Grain King, takes a young girl from the village each year for ritualistic pleasure in a sacred hut on a chalk mound. Mata is selected for grooming and undergoes a process of sexual preparation at the hands of one of the older women. Her experience in the hut is unforgettable and is also the inspiration of the strange but wonderful Peter Jones cover on the 1975 Panther edition.
Roberts has the skill to compose legend upon command. In Usk the Jokesman, his gift is on full display in a Shakespearean composition that tells the tale of a late king who believes his purchased wife is a goddess. He adorns her with riches, believes she has allowed him to become the grain, the rivers, the very chalk outlining its mysterious forms in the hills. The story plummets into tragedy with a stunning beauty I cannot adequately put into words.
Each story is a masterpiece that neighbors the hand of Mervyn Peake in its ability to feel a place, to live inside of it. The locale and character here affect you deeply and reverberate long after the pages close.
I am no writer, and language fails me when I try to describe how arresting this work is. It is a mosaic of a forgotten time, conjured to the page with such skill that we find ourselves sitting beside an old hearth - snapping logs send sparks behind our closed eyes, the wind flows busy among necklaces of goats, sounding their wooden bells - and all along the way you are aware of a great, unfathomable mystery, as priests and gods awaken their rituals in the night and the chalk figures fade in and out as the moon glowers over their forms.
Keith Roberts was an unsung genius. It's a shame that the NYRB did not get hold of his lesser known works, which is really everything but Pavane. His ability to detach himself from contemporary world views is something very few writers can claim. His ideas are original, drawn from a pagan-laced web of dreams that bubble to the surface of the modern day only to evaporate into forgotten dust. The critical frameworks needed to analyze these stories are starting to culturally disappear - and this, in turn, is precisely what makes them special, perhaps even treasured. Every serious reader should explore his work. He was among the rare few who could use the ideas of genre fiction to accomplish staggering artistic achievements.
P.S. - Avoid the 1975 G. P. Putnam's Sons and the 1976 Berkley Medallion edition. They both omit Keith's framing story, which was uncalled for. The UK versions are a bit tricky to track down but with some patience it will find you.
June 29, 2024
Pfft... Dit boek struikelt van mystiekerigheid over zijn eigen voeten. Een aantal korte verhalen die verbonden worden door een mysterieuze reiziger die zich voorbereidt op een wereld na de ineenstorting, maar vooral in de file zit en dan in een fles watert. Het is hoogdravend, pretentieus en ridicuul tegelijkertijd.
Onderwerpen als verkrachting en mogelijke incest met een pseudo religieus spiritueel tintje komen regelmatig terug en lijken verbonden te worden door een terugkerend thema maar voelen achteraf als los zand. Ik vond het verschrikkelijk moeilijk om te lezen en moest de neiging tot doorbladeren voortdurend bedwingen. Dit is het soort psycho-mystieke crap wat we in de 70er jaren veelal als SF gevoerd kregen. Het meest verdienstelijk is de cover en die heeft geen donder met de inhoud uit te staan. Deze kun je missen.
Onderwerpen als verkrachting en mogelijke incest met een pseudo religieus spiritueel tintje komen regelmatig terug en lijken verbonden te worden door een terugkerend thema maar voelen achteraf als los zand. Ik vond het verschrikkelijk moeilijk om te lezen en moest de neiging tot doorbladeren voortdurend bedwingen. Dit is het soort psycho-mystieke crap wat we in de 70er jaren veelal als SF gevoerd kregen. Het meest verdienstelijk is de cover en die heeft geen donder met de inhoud uit te staan. Deze kun je missen.
September 26, 2019
SPOILERS: Well, I have to say that I read Monkey and Pru and Sal decades ago ( I just guessed at the date) and the story haunted and stuck with me forever after. I tracked it down fairly recently and when I discovered it was part of a novel I was thrilled. I had so many unanswered questions, like: Who put Monkey in the truck and why? Who were Pru and Sal? What exactly was wrong with Monkey?
Anyway, I had high hopes that the novel would weave the answers to these questions into the narrative. I did have the edition with the framing story. I had no problem with the changing narratives and the time jumps, and I understand (at least I think I do) that we have the ancient civilization, the folks who carved the original naked guy on the hill, repeating itself into the far future, with Stan Potts floating in and out between chapters and acting weird—but it never did. For a while I thought creepy Stan and his huge truck full of food and other supplies might have been the Monkey prototype but no link was ever established. So one of my favorite short stories of all time is just sitting in the book like a large goose egg. It could have been left out entirely.
I did get a little weary of the same storyline repeated over and over. The goddess who seems lovey-dovey then turns murderous. Her female love interest. The rapey corn god.
But who was Monkey?
Anyway, I had high hopes that the novel would weave the answers to these questions into the narrative. I did have the edition with the framing story. I had no problem with the changing narratives and the time jumps, and I understand (at least I think I do) that we have the ancient civilization, the folks who carved the original naked guy on the hill, repeating itself into the far future, with Stan Potts floating in and out between chapters and acting weird—but it never did. For a while I thought creepy Stan and his huge truck full of food and other supplies might have been the Monkey prototype but no link was ever established. So one of my favorite short stories of all time is just sitting in the book like a large goose egg. It could have been left out entirely.
I did get a little weary of the same storyline repeated over and over. The goddess who seems lovey-dovey then turns murderous. Her female love interest. The rapey corn god.
But who was Monkey?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
July 18, 2014A story cycle covering the apocalypse and after, dominated (like Roberts' masterpiece Pavane) by the ancient, English omphalos of Corfe Castle. Heady and mystical though it is, for me it's not quite the equal of that book (or indeed Kiteworld). There's a lot to admire in Roberts' portrayal of the double-edged sword of lust et cetera, and its impact on the end of our history and the beginning of what comes after, but the recurrence of certain details feels a little more like authorial obsession than evidence of any eternal cycle.
(I didn't actually read it in this rather lurid paperback, but in an omnibus with two others I've read before, printed by SF Gateway - a Gollancz project with the commendable aim of getting some of the huge amount of SF classics out there back into e-'print' at least)
(I didn't actually read it in this rather lurid paperback, but in an omnibus with two others I've read before, printed by SF Gateway - a Gollancz project with the commendable aim of getting some of the huge amount of SF classics out there back into e-'print' at least)
September 26, 2008
I have really been getting into Roberts lately with his fascination for pre or post technological societies and with his hankering for elements mystical "lost" old Britain, but this book rather put me off with its constant use of rape as a plot device.
November 14, 2023
Wonderful style and transporting ideas but repeated unsettling and violent sexual fantasies about women and very young girls. Ick. DNF.
April 2, 2008
Keith Roberts is best known for Pavane, one of the masterpieces of alternate history. The Chalk Giants is a post-apocalyptic novel, but very different from the usual run of post-apocalyptic books. There are parallel narratives that loop back on themselves. Much of the book deals with a society that is once more in the grip of ritual and myth, and a belief in magic. Roberts deals with these subjects particularly well, and also with the interactions between myth, magic, power and sex. It’s a rather brutal book – Roberts had a rather pessimistic view of human history. He reminds me just a little of Henry Treece in his skill in conveying the feel of society dominated by belief in magic and the supernatural. The Chalk Giants isn’t as good as Pavane, but it’s still pretty good. It’s a book that isn’t quite fantasy and isn’t quite science fiction either. Definitely worth reading.
October 6, 2015
After a nuclear war, it seems that England reverts to a state of barbarism, with warring medieval-style kingdoms and a pagan religion; the later parts reminded me of "Game of Thrones", though this was written many years earlier. This is more a series of linked stories than a novel, and although some of the individual stories are good, they did not really hang together well in my opinion.
May 21, 2025
This is remarkable book of linked stories concerning a postapocalyptic Britain. In this edition, the first two stories concern a group of people sheltering from an imminent nuclear war and invasion of Britain. There are five main characters in these two stories. Potts is the main focus of the first story, and he features in each of the short linking sections between stories. The others are Martine (Pott's obsession), Maggie (a lesbian attracted to Martine), Richard (an artist and friend of Maggie), and Martin (a playboy sleeping with Martine). This group shelters in an abandoned farmhouse as war approaches. With the anxiety of the coming war and inherent tensions among the group, there is bound to be conflict, and the group fragments at the end of the first story. The second story also deals with most of these characters, but during and immediately after the war. The book then really shifts gears. The third story is the closest to the norm for a postapocalyptic tale, featuring a group of mutants that wander England. The final four stories, the real meat of the book, details a postapocalyptic Britain dominated by many small kingdoms, religious cults, and brutal savagery. The stories read more like historical fantasy than science fiction. Robert E. Howard's Conan would have found this imagined future/past a familiar place. However, Keith Roberts' focus in these stories is not adventure, but a meticulous examination of how cults, kingdoms, and myths could arise. The closest comparison that I can make for these final stories are the works of Tanith Lee. However, with Lee, the fantasy elements were overt. With Roberts, the fantasy elements are present but only because the characters actually believe in gods and monsters. This book is frequently quite beautiful, but I admit that it can be slow going. Some editions actually cut the first two stories and linking sections, and I can understand this editorial decision because the links between the present and the future/past are tenuous. However, it does presage how quickly people can descend to chaos and conflict, and the stories are a good starting point for the wheel of time framework of the book.
November 21, 2021
The 'modern' chapters add nothing of any real worth or significance. The substance of the work is the future-past world that Roberts creates in a much altered post-armageddon Albion. No shells of ruined cities here - the detritus of 20th century society, and the manner of its downfall is no more than hint and suggestion. The odd patch of tarmac, a reoccupied Corfe Castle, the enduring desolation of nuclear blast sites that have become the stuff of legend.
I can't help but wish that Keith Roberts had progressed to have a more productive publishing career as he was stylistically really very good, and a decent trilogy would have placed him in the top tier of fantasy writers anywhere.
The central theme of the work is the wheel of time. The society Roberts creates moves from one with Iron Age characteristics, through Migration Period to something very akin to the 11th century, inviting the assumption that our modern world would eventually recreate itself.
I can't help but wish that Keith Roberts had progressed to have a more productive publishing career as he was stylistically really very good, and a decent trilogy would have placed him in the top tier of fantasy writers anywhere.
The central theme of the work is the wheel of time. The society Roberts creates moves from one with Iron Age characteristics, through Migration Period to something very akin to the 11th century, inviting the assumption that our modern world would eventually recreate itself.
Read
December 21, 2022Be aware that if you get hold of a copy of the American version of The Chalk Giants published in the 1970's, Berkley [pb] and Putnam [hb], then you are not getting the full story. I have the Berlkey paperback edition here as well as a copy of the british Panther paperback with the bad taste cover and a couple of Hutchinson hardback copies. The Berkley copy starts at chapter 3, 'Monkey and Pru and Sal' and besides missing the first 2 chapters, is also missing the 1-2 page italicised sections prefacing each of the 7 chapters as well as a couple of italicised pages that comes after 'Usk the Jokeman', and in short, the entire framing story has been removed from the American copies so that the volume is presented like a collection of 5 short stories.
January 16, 2024
Ininteligible bodrio.
Did Not Finish
April 12, 2024(alte Wertung: nicht fertiggelesen)
December 8, 2007
DO NOT GET THIS BOOK! I don't often hate a book, but this qualified. Could not finish it. [update: I finally finished it. Still don't like it, but it isn't hanging over me any more.]
August 5, 2010
It has good stories, but it is terribly difficult to read. I would say the reading difficulty would be comparable to opening 1984 about halfway through and trying to understand what is going on.
January 16, 2012
Linked post-apocalyptic stories by a better-than-average English science fiction writer.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews