Dedskull By Taylor, Howard

Is Britain the most doom-ridden it''s ever been? It may feel that way. But it’s a tie.

Between famine and plague, revolt and reinvention, Dedskull is a collection of interlinked tales set in Northamptonshire between 1315 and 1348, each following the elusive soldier, Dedskull, as he drifts through moments of crisis, bearing witness to how ordinary people respond when survival is at stake.

Drawing on real events and legends, the stories explore brutal winters, social unrest, economic experiments, environmental destruction, and the first stirrings of the modern world. Dedskull is sometimes saviour, sometimes judge, sometimes merely observer, tipping the balance between disaster and survival… or not.