I really wanted to like this book more than I did! I loved the premise and the first couple of chapters, but then I felt it lost its way slightly... There were huge chunks of descriptive prose describing the turbines and their inner workings that I really struggled to follow and visualise, however I realise this could be my failing, but it hindered my enjoyment of the book.

I liked the relationship between the Old Man and Young Boy but felt I wanted more from them. I wanted to know more about them and I enjoyed their dialogue.

The imagery it created was great but I wanted to know more about the context and how they ended up there etc... I realise the lack of this information was the authors choice, but I felt that had more context been provided it would have really deepened the story and its relationships.

I felt the flashback paragraphs weren’t needed and didn’t deepen the narrative.

I would certainly read something else by this author however as despite my negative comments I enjoyed some of it and liked the style in some places.

Doggerland by author Ben Smith is a gripping and haunting read of a novel. Pulls you in from the beginning and holds you in. I loved the near future book, Doggerland!
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an arc copy of Doggerland in exchange for an honest review.

Good read. Enjoyed this book. Ok overall.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Harper Collins uk for my eARC of this book in exchange for honest unbiased review

Sanity and resolve patiently weather the bleak and hostile location of a decaying oceanic platform, until monotony casts off and drifts beyond its dependable boundary.

Its occupants, a duo humbly labelled as ‘the boy’ and ‘the old man’, manage a forest of wind turbines surrounded by the endlessly churning ocean and a brooding confinement that ebbs and flows. Here, time erodes at a gruelling pace as they surrender to the predictability of one another’s company.

The chronic tedium of their routine keeps a steady course throughout and is carried along on alternating currents of futility and hope, while the narrative shifts between the past and present to reveal the prospect of a desperately punishing future.

This convincingly speculative read will see you brushing the salt off your clothes and guarding your heart against its lingering misery. Even when I’d reached the end I felt as though a little part of me was still clinging to the uninviting deck.

I can’t better Jon McGregor’s contribution to the publisher’s blurb for this book and take the liberty of reproducing it here.

‘In Doggerland, Ben Smith has created a vision of the future in which the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper but just rusts gradually into the sea. I found it both terrifying and hugely enjoyable, as well as tremendously moving. Ben Smith's writing is incredibly precise; working with a restricted palette of steel greys and flaking blues, he paints the boundaried seascape with vivid detail. This is a story about men and fathers, the faint consolation of routine, and the undying hope of finding out what lies beyond the horizon. I absolutely loved it.’ Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13

I also shy away from describing the plot. So little action takes place that to reveal any of it would be to spoil others’ experience of the book. The author’s outstanding creation for me is the atmosphere of the story - claustrophobic, despite its setting, and fraught with danger. There are only three characters and a degree of mystery surrounds all of them - how did they end up on the turbine farm?, what lives did they lead before? And, of course, central to it all, what lives could they live outside the farm?, what is out there beyond the last turbine?

The title Doggerland prompts more questions than it answers. I was aware of the area of dry land that used to connect Britain to Europe before it was flooded when the ice retreated and that now lies under the North Sea. I was aware that prehistoric artefacts have long been discovered off the British and Dutch coasts, and reading this story led to me spending a happy hour looking into it all online. I loved the way the author amalgamates these and other hints of ancient events into a futuristic novel about a world undergoing a slow but relentless apocalypse, and maybe renewal - really fascinating and thought-provoking.

Highly recommended.