STORY DESCRIPTION

The legend of ‘Penal Colony Nine’ consists of 9 separate books of which this is the ninth and the last that has been discovered to date.

This sprawling, rambling tale of over 120,000 words in all (Books 1-9), is set in 2025. The final book takes us to the conclusion of that momentous year, with 7 months having passed since the finale of Book 8.

By the end of this Book, we will discover the fates of numerous characters, including the politician Bob Smith and his wife; prisoner couples Sarah and Jim Armstrong and Josh and Linda Montagu; Major Damian Parks; the three Deputy Wardens Sadie, Lesley and Giles, and of course Bull Sykes and Junior. Popular minor personalities such as Nurse Kimiko and Guard Kayla, Andrew and Amy Carrington, and the Clark family all make appearances.

The Penal Colonies are based on the old Chinese system of Laogai camps where prisoners must be “utilized as productive forces, with submissiveness as the prerequisite. The system's fundamental policy is Hard Labour as a means, while Thought Reform is the aim”.

So far we have glimpsed what it’s like to arrive on the island as a prisoner (‘Book One’), to work in one of its factories (‘Book Two’), to host visitors to its Sex Resort (‘Book Three’), to toil on its Farm (‘Book Four’), to use its primitive facilities (‘Book Five’), to be subject to the whims of individual guards (‘Book Six’), to be the entertainment at its famous Pillory Parties (‘Book Seven’), and to have no hope that help will ever arrive (‘Book Eight’). In ‘Book Nine’ we discover if the end is happy, or sad?