I just finished for my #RetroReads project (revisiting novels I owned and/or read during my youth): THE QUIET PLACE by Richard Maynard (1987). I had completely forgotten this one until @Criminolly mentioned it during his Library of Forgotten Books project, at which point I recalled really enjoying it near 40 years ago. I immediately located and purchased a copy. It tells of seven astronauts who, due to space/time physics, return to Earth thousands of years after their departure. They find that civilisation has collapsed, and the human race is much reduced and regressed to the stone-age. Yet, there are no signs of a holocaust or even of war. The story of how they struggle to survive while investigating the mystery is gripping, and the losses they suffer really strike at the heart. The narrator occasionally hints at greater tragedies to come, and this keeps the tension simmering throughout. Where the novel really excels, though, is in its atmosphere. The haunting descriptions of decaying, empty, and overgrown cities are fantastic. I cannot think of any other post-apocalyptic novel that comes close to matching the overwhelming silence and dilapidation, aside from EARTH ABIDES by George R. Stewart (1949). The difference is that where the latter is set in the USA, THE QUIET PLACE has France and southern England as its arena, and includes visits to the decayed remains of cities and towns in which I have actually lived. The storyâs end is poignant, tremendously sad, and itâs easy to see why it made such an impression on me all those years ago. Iâm surprised I ever forgot this lost classic. Fantastic to have rediscovered it!

















