Keith Roberts (1935-2000)
Keith Roberts was an English author and illustrator, who did more than most to define the look of UK Science fiction magazines in the sixties. He won four BFSA awards for his writing and his art, and edited the magazine Science Fantasy (later Impulse) for a time. He was also nominated for Hugo, Nebula (twice) and Arthur C. Clarke awards. He is perhaps best known for his seminal alternative history novel, Pavane, praised by George R. R. Martin: 'No alternate history novel of the past thirty years comes close to equalling Pavane'.

Ladies from Hell contains five long stories.

"The Shack at Great Cross Halt" describes a Britain dominated by motorways, juggernauts and a tyranny, in which the unfortunates of society eke out a miserable existence scavenging items that fall off lorries.

"The Ministry of Children" shows comprehensive schools having become terrifying battlegrounds dominated by vicious gangs.

"The Big Fans" concerns an experiment in wind-powered electricity which accidentally unleashes an apocalyptic storm of effects.

"Our Lady of Destruction" ironically depicts a future in which a Stalinist British government taxes 'non-productive' people (i.e. artists) at over 100% and assigns them individual Overseers to regulate their work.

"Missa Privata" shows an opera singer in a communist-dominated Britain making a defiant individual gesture which will bring about her own ruin.

These are not stories of spaceships and alien worlds; rather they are studies of imminent social change, written out of passionate concern about the directions in which our society may be heading - stories, in fact, in the great Orwellian tradition. Most importantly, they are stories about people: believable, defiant individuals struggling against oppressive forces.