The Penal Colony

by Richard Herley

The British government now runs island prisons for the worst offenders from its mainland jails. New arrivals are dumped by helicopter and must learn to survive as best they can.

To Sert, one afternoon in July, is brought Anthony John Routledge, sentenced for a sex-murder he did not commit. Routledge knows he is he is here for ever. And he knows he must quickly forget the rules of civilized life.

But not all the islanders are savages. Under the charismatic leadership of one man a community has evolved. A community with harsh and unyielding rules, peopled by resourceful men for whom the hopeless dream of escape may not be so hopeless after all ...

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Ebooks, Crime, Adventure

367 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1987

About the author

I was born in England in 1950 and educated at Watford Boys’ Grammar School and Sussex University, where my interest in natural history led me to read biology; but from my earliest years English had been my “best” subject, and shortly before my final exams I decided to try to become a professional writer. The job of the artist – in whichever medium he or she works – is an important one, since, conscientiously practised, it helps us to make sense of ourselves and the world.

Authorship is not an easy path to follow. I continue to work at the craft and marvel at its subtlety. I prefer a conventional storytelling framework. This offers the greatest potential for the writer: a reader who wants to know “what happens next” is the most receptive and stands to gain the most of all.

Reviews

[Benjamin Duffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I read The Penal Colony was 1998 or so; I spotted a well-used paperback copy in a pile of abandoned belongings at a college dormitory. I took it, began to read, and was instantly absorbed. I was blown away by the story, the characters, and through it all the language: sometimes sharp and precise, other times poetic, always compelling and memorable. I consider myself a fairly well-read person, in terms of classic literature as well as modern best-sellers, and without hesitation, I would have put The Penal Colony on my "Desert Island List" of ten books that I would take with me to my own exile on Sert.

Up until a few years ago, this book was hard to find: out of print (at least in the USA), loosely adapted into a truly godawful movie (consider that I've probably read this book ten times, yet never been able to sit through No Escape even the once),and precious little information available on the internet. Now it's available as an e-book on Amazon, and it's an absolute gem of a book. The ideas, situations and characters will stay with you for life.

[Vik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up as a freebie kindle book and was not expecting it to be as good as it actually was. This book presents a dystopian view of life in Britain at some point that would now be the past from the point of view of when this book was written. In fact if the author hadn't mentioned a date of one of Acts central to this book it would easily be timeless. Having said that, this book is pertinent for the type of world and society we could easily become.

I quite quickly grew to have an affinity for the central character who has basically been sent to a prison island for the worst type of offenders in the system. This island being one where the prison authorities basically drop you off in a helicopter and leave you and the other prisoners to it.

I could not put this down once I started reading, if I could buy a copy to show my appreciation I would, the author deserves it!

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh. My. God. This book was incredible. I just finished it a few minutes ago. It's part-Island of Doctor Moreau, part-Great Escape. Superbly written, the detail and thought put into it, the characters, the plot -- the fucking plot, my god -- the writing was so good, I started feeling scared and nervous as I read. I felt relief when the main character got out of a hairy situation. Dare I use the phrase emotionally turbulent? I couldn't stop thinking about the book when I wasn't reading it.

I knew nothing about this book before I started it except for the title and I really really enjoyed reading every word of it. Wow.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just finished reading one of the myriad of free offerings for Kindle that Amazon provides. That in itself would usually be an achievement, that I had managed to get all the way through a free eBook without giving up on it, they generally aren't renowned for their quality. However what I have just read is nothing short of a masterpiece, this book reminded me why I loved trawling through the library and scurrying home laden down with books as a kid. It reminded me of my endless capacity to consume great stories, transporting myself to other worlds and places.

The Penal Colony is the best book I have read in years and it didn’t cost me a bean. The author Richard Herley deserves to be revered as one of the all time great story tellers, I admit I haven’t read any of his other work (yet!) but even based solely on the strength of this one book he deserves the accolade, to me The Penal Colony is nothing short of a classic. The story is gripping, exiting, enthralling and sometimes gruesome, the characters are real, they exist totally and completely in this society in microcosm that is Sert. A place that feels so real it almost has you reaching for the map to try and locate its presence off the Cornish coastline. At points I found my heart racing and in my eagerness to know what happened next my brain had difficulty keeping up with my eyes as they swept down the page.

The book had all the comments on society you would expect in a book on this subject, at times it was darkly introspective and at others deeply moving, but above all it was just a damn good story, as thrilling and heartfelt as anything you could hope to read.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Richard Herley has made it available for free on both the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords
The Penal Colony
I urge you to download it, what have you got to lose? It’s free.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Cuando la intencionalidad de la pena dista mucho de la rehabilitación.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción (por poquito…).

Lo que nos cuenta. Anthony Routledge despierta en una isla prisión del gobierno británico donde cumplirá una cadena perpetua por un crimen que no cometió. Inmediatamente y siguiendo las reglas de su anfitriones, tan convictos como él, tendrá que enfrentarse completamente en solitario con la extrema dureza y peligrosidad de la vida en ese presidio.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Richard Rider · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got to 60% and sort of skim-read the rest. Annoying because it got less offensive from there and started to focus more on moving the story along, but I lost the will to give it any more attention.

I mentioned this in a comment-thread on one of my status updates: I usually have a lot of patience with problematic elements of books that were written a few decades (or centuries) ago. You can't really ignore social context with things like that - if we refused to read books that were a bit racist or a bit misogynistic or a bit homophobic or a bit pro-Empire or whatever it would mean missing out on such a massive amount of great literature. What I can't stand is reading that sort of stuff in books published now, when we're all supposed to be a bit more switched on about how not to be rotten to other people for stupid reasons like their gender or race or sexuality. I think the reason the extreme racism and homophobia bothered me so much in this book is that the writing style and setting feels sort of timeless - yes it was written in the '80s, but it could have been written this year, and that meant the ugly parts were really jarring. It makes sense that there'd be some level of unpleasantness given the setting and the unfortunate reality of many people's prejudices, but none of the racist and homophobic remarks anywhere in the book felt like they were coming from a character we were supposed to despise. Mostly they came from the protagnist, who just ended up feeling like a ventriloquist's dummy for the author's own issues. It made him impossible to empathise with - myself, I'd like to suggest an island penal colony for people who think like this:

"Men varied in the strength of their sexual drive. Some, like himself, could deal with abstinence, for ever if need be. Others were not so fortunate. Once temptation had summoned, once their desires had glimpsed the possibility of escape, all will was lost, all normal considerations were left behind. On the blind path downwards no shame or humiliation was too great to risk.

So it's Routledge's middle-class 1980s opinion, yes, ok, believable, I get it, but it makes him so difficult to like and root for. I didn't give a shit whether he escaped the island or not by the end, so the second half of the book fell completely flat for me.

This intense dislike for the protagonist is such a shame because there's so much in the book I really did enjoy. There's some interesting stuff about society and leadership and self-preservation, and the whole ongoing storyline about creating the boat was brilliant. I just couldn't stand reading all the unnecessary unpleasantness around it. I wish it could be toned down and re-released because I'd be happy to rate it higher and recommend it to everybody then, but as it stands I can't rate it any higher than this because it's just so hateful and grim.

[I Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this looking for a book on the historical penal colonies of Australia, but found the concept described in the blurb of a modern day equivalent, set on an island off the Cornish coast and controlled by satellites and every security device afforded by the technological advances of our age too intriguing not to read and I’m so glad I did!

I thought the author did a brilliant job of presenting it in a believable light, having considered all aspects and come up with a unique model; it could have so easily been dull and boring with little imaginative input. Herley’s knowledge has to be given credit for its part played in creating a convincing environment and story, though at times I felt he could have got away with describing things less without losing the reader. However, I admit everything was very ingeniously worked out and I wonder whether a male might take a different perspective on this point, plus I’m sure the minute details would interest people who work in fields related to the subjects in question.

The choice to make the protagonist an innocent man sent there through a miscarriage of justice was a wise one in my eyes, as it allows the reader to put themselves in his shoes and imagine how they would cope if it happened to them. This is also aided in times of reminiscence, where one is able to see how completely average and similar to many of our lives his had been, while showing the stark contrast to where and how he must now live. It allows the reader to reflect on mainland ‘ordinary’ life and society and appreciate how much is taken for granted and how little a human needs in order to survive in an animal sense. The book brings in to question what would survive, be able to be rebuilt and recovered and what would discontinue if people are stripped of all they own. It also shows via the two separate communities how co-operation can advance a society, making it prosper.

One aspect that did throw me off a little was the parallel undercurrent to biblical scriptures. For me, this took some of the believability factor away as it began to feel more like a contrived story than a real life scenario; I felt it was only necessary to take it as far as it being the perception of the antagonist, providing a reason for his actions. I can see for some this provides a welcome added dimension, but I felt the book may have been better standing alone in its own right as a story and one entirely separate from any previous tales.

[Leah Polcar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so disappointed by this book. The premise is so intriguing -- send away the most dangerous criminals to small islands and let them fend for themselves. However, I found that overall, while worth a read, this book was only mediocre. I have two main reasons for thinking this. The first is that Herley does not fully develop the story about how such penal colonies came to be. He makes frequent mention of how this is exactly what one could expect from Great Britain and that Great Britain is horrible, but he never really elaborates on this. This would be no problem at all, since there are so many things one could write about, but because he criticizes the British culture and government so much, I expect a bit more real development and some development of that story line. The second reason is that Routledge (our hero) is incredibly annoying. He tends to make conclusions, then forget them and then make the same conclusions again. Rinse and repeat The prime example of this is his "conversion" from snob to real, and totally accepting, man. How many times did we listen to Routledge's inner monologue where he concludes that he won't judge people by accents or appearance, just to have him judge someone by accent or appearance and just to have that followed up a few pages later with his conclusion that he will never judge someone based on accents or appearance? Was it five times? Seven? By the time we are supposed to actually believe he is Mr. Self-Improvement and Growth, he is on his way to freedom. Whatever dude. Who cares anymore? Also, I found the book's "tone of voice" kind of odd. It came across as being straight outta the 50s. I suppose that 1987 was pretty backward though, so maybe I should lighten up.

Still the idea is fun and perhaps another author out there will steal it and we can see if more can be done with this idea? Till then, I wouldn't stop reading what you are reading to get to The Penal Colony , but if you have some time and come across it, then make some time to read it.

[Tom Gold · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Anthony Routledge, a former surveyor wrongly accused of murder and condemned to spend the rest of his days on the on the bleak island of Serte, where Britain’s worst convicted criminals have been abandoned to fend for themselves.

Following his initiation he is accepted into ‘The Village’, a semi fortified peninsula within the boundries of which a group of prisoners have formed a society based on rigid protocol and hierarchy. Beyond its boundries the ‘Outsiders’ exist in a state of perpetual tribal war.

Routledge learns to fulfill his duties and to insulate himself from the bluff formality of his companions with an icy indifference but as war with the Outsiders looms he discovers that doing what it takes to survive in the Village will also involve putting his life on the line to defend it in a bloody war to the knife.

Herley’s rich prose places us firmly in Serte’s rugged, windswept landscape. It puts us on uncomfortably intimate terms with the moral degeneracy of the Outsiders and it allows us into the secretive almost monastic life of the Village.

We are also privy to Routledge's ruthless self examination as he makes the painful journey from despair through, isolation and loneliness and finally to acceptance and inclusion in a plan to escape the island.

Bringing together the darkness of Orwell’s 1984 and the savagery of Benchley’s The Island, the Penal Colony is more than a chilling read, it is an unsettling examination of our own base instincts for survival.

[Joe Stamber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Herley's "The Penal Colony" is a sort of Papillon off the coast of Cornwall with a bit of Scum thrown in. Another reviewer mentioned Lord of the Flies and I can see why. However, despite these references, The Penal Colony is its own story, not an imitation of another. Herley has taken a plausible scenario and developed it thoughtfully enough to draw the reader in and convince him that this could be happening.

Routledge is a wrongly convicted "Category Z" prisoner who is dumped on the island of Sert amongst some of the lowest forms of life the criminal fraternity has to offer. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a community has formed, giving some of the islanders meaning and pupose. Those who reject or are rejected by this community are "outsiders", desperate men who live their woeful lives in woeful conditions. This is the story of Routledge's struggle to survive and of the conflicts between the different groups on the island.

The Penal Colony is a refreshing and imaginative tale. It takes some skill to invent a world such as this that could almost be true and make it totally convincing, but Herley pulls it off. Great to read something a bit different.

[Mark Chisnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I noticed flying high in the Kindle store and with almost 400 reviews averaging close to 5 stars, I thought it was worth a closer look – I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a great read, the tale of an innocent man dispatched to a brutal jail for the rest of his life – Shawshank Redemption territory.

In my view, it’s a match for that movie. It has all the action required of the genre, but pushes home a few hard points about leadership, the nature of punishment, violence and man’s essential self. It’s not necessary to agree with what Herley seems to have to say about these things – it’s more than enough that he gets you thinking about it.

This really was my kind of book, and in a sense it brought together the thought-provoking element of Only the Innocent, with the faster, cleaner, pacier writing style of Jet - and produced a book as good as either one on their own terms, and better than both judged on my own personal scale.

Richard Herley seems to be one of those writers that publishing forgot, and more power to the eBook revolution in bringing his work back to the surface and into the light it so richly deserves. I will be reading more.

[Elaine and Tess the Springer. I won’t be on GR for a bit. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book.

Wow. It's an incredible read. I actually got this book free and had a wee look at it and that was me, pulled in. It has so much reading in it and every word has to be read to keep abreast of what is going on. All the characters that played a part in the book were amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept was intriguing and should have made for a thrilling read, but I couldn't really get into the book, didn't care for its protagonist, and the blatant homophobia running through the whole thing just pissed me off.

[Linus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It‘s beautifully written and you can easily loose yourself in the story which is quite shocking at same points, but there are also intimate and human moments. A neglected gem and right after finishing it, it deserves 5 stars!

[Seth Heasley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giving this a generous three stars, but it's a two and a half star read. It's a relatively short book that could've benefitted from being longer, better developing the subplots and characters that it kept dropping in.

It's also fairly regressive. I mean, I know it was the 80s, and yes homophobia was common, but some of this was hard to read due to that factor. The way race was handled wasn't a great deal better, but I guess the book did one good thing: it reminded me of some of the changes I've made in the way I thought about people and groups in the past. I'm not sure 80s me would even have noticed most of it.

[Mekerei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lord of the Flies in a Penal Colony

When I read the reviews of this novel I wondered how Henley was going to make this tale so compelling that it would rate at 4+ stars.

He did by making the men in the penal colony so believable that you felt for them. You wondered how “society” could put the “worst” criminals on an island, left to their own devices, to create their own society. How could anyone survive in this society?

This tale of humanity is what’s makes this novel four and a half stars.

[Michael Workman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Penal Colony

Fantastic read. Be prepared for a long night, once you start it, you will not be able to put it down

[Martyn J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember the 1994 movie of the book starring Ray Liotta. Not a bad film or premise for a story.

Sadly this one was let down by the main character who was pretty unlikeable and had a hang up on ‘the old man’ aka God who, in the words of C S Lewis “maintained that God did not exist, was also very angry with God for not existing and was equally angry with Him for creating a world.” I didn’t find myself rooting for the guy or caring much if he survived or not. In fact, I had more sympathy for his fellow prisoners who he was inflicted upon.

If the main character had had more depth, I think this would have made for an excellent yarn.

[Ed Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed this book - Herley has clearly put a lot of thought into how the penal colony of Sert operates. I felt there were a lot of similarities with Lord of the Flies, in terms of how the different groups on the island are characterised and interact with each other. The first few days Routledge spends on the island stand out as very visceral and brutal reading, and make quite a contrast with life inside Franks' village later in the book. Aside from my main criticisms, detailed below, I felt the ending was rather rushed and abrupt.

For me, Richard Herley's approaches to the issues of race and sexuality require comment as I believe they are detrimental to what would otherwise be a really great novel. I almost put the book down in disgust after the first non-white character is referred to as "a black" who, with the assistance of another, white, prisoner on the island, attempts to rape the main character.

Herley has addressed accusations of homophobia and racism levelled at him on his blog. His defences seem to be (a) that views held by a character in a novel don't always represent those of the author and that Routledge is intended to be seen as a bigoted and arrogant character whose views are challenged over the course of his time on the island, and that (b) the novel was written in a different time when different views prevailed with regard to sexuality.

I'm inclined to give point (a) the benefit of the doubt when it comes to race, as it seems to be only when characters are viewed through the eyes of the main character, Routledge, that they are specifically referred to by race. For me, this is the author showing Routledge to be a bigot upon his arrival at the island. That said, I was still shocked at the matter-of-fact way the character's racism was revealed.

Point (b) I'm less convinced by - especially since the author is still active and could easily go back and edit the more offensive parts of his writing. Gay relationships are banned in the village, a community run through a kind of strictly enforced paternalistic dictatorship that represents civilisation on the island. The main reason for this seems to be fears of the risk of AIDS, which the author notes on his blog was not well understood at the time of writing. While there is a subplot concerning a gay relationship within the village, and the main character's response to this, gay characters living outside the village seem to be presented as predators whose sexuality is expressed through acts of violence and slavery. Even the gay characters within the vilalge are characterised as putting the community at risk. Homosexuality seems to be used as at best a potentially harmful weakness and at worst a marker of predatory degeneracy and savagery characteristic of the dark side of human nature - a very disturbing characterisation that I don't think can be handwaved away as a product of different attitudes being prevalent at the time of writing.

This is a thought-provoking book that is worth reading, however the approach to sexuality would have been prejudiced and problematic even when the novel was first published, and has no place in 2013.

Herley still seems to be active and publishing - I'd say it's high time he revised this novel to correct the homophobic attitudes presented.

[YouKneeK · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn’t a bad book but, having read the high praise from several other reviews, I think I must have missed that “special something” that made this book stand out for other people. The story is centered on a man who, imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit, is dropped off by a helicopter on an island-based penal colony. Nobody else inhabits the island except for other prisoners who were put there because they were the worst of the worst.

There are some worthwhile themes in this book. The ingenuity of the characters in the book in surviving and improving their lives under harsh conditions without modern comforts is impressive. The book also deals somewhat with the folly of prejudice and judgmental attitudes toward others. However, these themes are hardly unique to this book. The premise sounded interesting, and the story did hold some interest for me, but it didn’t grab me strongly. I also never really warmed up to any of the characters.

I don’t think this book aged well. I hadn’t been reading very long before I started to wonder, “When was this book written?!” I’ve had this book on my Kindle for quite some time now, so I didn’t remember or check the publication date when I decided to read it. I was actually surprised when I looked it up and saw that it had been written as recently as 1987. I think it was mostly the attitudes of some of the characters that made the book feel dated to me. I think this is also the reason why I didn’t warm up to the characters. The main character was quite prejudiced, particularly earlier on in the story, and he also came across as having a naiveté that I found annoying. Although the book shifted focus to other characters occasionally, the majority of the book was spent in the point of view of the main character. There were some other characters that seemed interesting, but we never really got to know them very well.

The ending felt rushed, and it lacked the level of detail that was given to the events leading up to the ending. I would have liked to know more about what happened in the end.

[Joe Brookes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great thriller about man's inhumanity to man

[Horace Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is completely different to what I was expecting. For some reason I had it muddled up with The Floating Brothel, about female convicts being brought onto transportation ships for the officer’s pleasure.

The book is set in the future where the government are dealing with overflowing prisons, so take the decision to send prisoners to deserted islands, in particular, in Cornwall. They are helicoptered in and watched by satellite.

All prisoners are the highest category murders and people who committed other heinous crimes. On the island the prisoners belong to one of three groups, the villagers being the hierarchy. The other two groups are the most deprived and depraved as the villagers have control of the food and supplies that the helicopters drop with new prisoners.

Into this environment comes John Routledge, brought in by helicopter with scant possessions. He was convicted of murdering a young woman, but he is innocent. He is picked up by the villagers and told that if he can survive the island’s terrors for six nights, they will take him into their group and he will be safer, as long as he follows the rules. After being captured by two wild men who want to keep Routledge for their own pleasure, he kills them both and survives the required time out in the wilds, being admitted as one of the villagers. He is a skilled draughtsman and his skills are needed for an overly ambitious escape plan.

So far, despite being the furthest possible from the book I was expecting, it is really engaging and I’m really keen to find out more.

Edit, now finished and despite being the ‘wrong book’, it kept my interest right to the end. Although the prisoners fight and also use new intakes for their own pleasure, the book is neither overtly sexually explicit nor full of swearing and violence. I give the book a strong 4 stars.

[Gary Gauthier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very satisfying read. The book is well written with an excellent balance of description and action. It is a tale of survival that reveals the best and the worst of human nature. It is also a psychological novel of personal transformation. The protagonist begins in a place of both physical and emotional isolation and ends up belonging.

There was hardly a dull moment as the story unfolded. The action is nicely paced and dramatic tension is maintained throughout the book. There is no useless fodder.

The book left me with the impression that the author invested a tremendous amount of research and used lots of care in putting this story together. I highly recommend this work.

The book touches on a number of technical professions and basic scientific ideas that don't usually figure in everyday life.

[Shell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one took me by surprise, I have to admit the only reason I had in on my Nook is because it was available as a freebie and it had some good reviews. The subject matter isn't something that would normally interest me but I took a chance and I'm glad I did. A great action/redemption story that I think would appeal to a lot of people. By the final few chapters it definitely entered "just one more page" territory and I ended up sitting up in bed until I finished it. Looking forward to reading more by this author.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written piece of dystopian fiction. Some of the story gets bogged down in places with technical details that I found unnecessary, but on the whole it's an interesting story that conveys the sense of isolation and the lengths convicted criminals go to to survive when they are exiled to live on an island.

[Glenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book because the whole idea of having a prison apart from society was intriguing and I liked reading about the dynamics of the island groups and how they made things work and lived on that island.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a free kindle download, so I wasn't expecting much. How wrong was I?! The story is like Enid Blyton's Secret Island (my favourite childhood story) but with added murder and intrigue. Gripping!

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can’t exactly call it a “cozy” dystopia, but the lingering effect of the traditionally English mode of nature writing into which (so much of) this can be perpendicularly slotted is one of enough calm and sober grandeur as to render its broader barbarities a noble, tea-time stillness.

[Brian Gore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Lord of the Flies meets Lost.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greatest adventure books I've read in a long time. Though gruesome, it has a very delicate plot that is easily understood and sympathized with.