Following a nuclear war, a bunch of survivors have forged a nation using kites to prevent incursions from the Badlands where demons hold sway. Like The Chalk Giants, the story comes across as linked novellas, but here the rebuilt civilisation is technological. The timespan of the story seems tighter, too. The ending was rather reminscent of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids.

Recommended.

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2014/12/review-of-kiteworld-by-keith-roberts.ht... ( )

Kitemaster

Set in a post-nuclear holocaust low-tech future, along the border of the badlands patrols of man-lifting Kites keep a watch for 'Demons'. A Kitemaster is visiting and buried emotions are unearthed when a near accident occurs....Very realistic and involving.

Kitecadet

In the same post-holocaust milieux as Kitemaster, Raoul, a kitesman gets a furlough in the 'big city', Middlemarch, but a feud resurfaces and a romance is ruined by a bad memory.

Kitemistress

In the same post-holocaust milieux as Kitecadet, Raoul resigns as a Kiteman after the experience of killing something not quite human. He gets a post as Kiteman for the rich Kerosinas. Lady Kerosina takes an interest in Raoul, sparking a harrowing chain of events.

Kite Captain

In the same post-holocaust milieux as Kitemistress, respected Kite Captain Rand has a secret. His sister, Tan, is unable to talk and seems to genetically damaged. Despite her handicap he loves her and they grow close. The story flips between the present, where he has ordered for himself a lone a kite flight at the highest height possible, and the past, and these gradually converge. Powerful.

Kiteservant

Follows Kitecapain chronologically. Rand Rand is a rebel who questions the teachings of the Church Variant, which vows to protect the Realm against the evil Demons from the wastelands. He falls in love but finds that rejecting orthodoxy has its price...

Kite waif

Follows Kiteservant chronologically. Rand encounters two indomitable women, the Lady Kerosina and an orphan girl, Velvet, the latter impressing him with her robust approach to life.

Kitemariner

Follows Kite waif chronologically. The deeply religious 'Vars' commandeer a Kiteship and force its crew take it out on a one-way trip into a storm...

Kitekillers

Follows Kitemariner chronologically,. Things fall apart... ( )

This novel is comprised of various connected short stories first published in the early 1980s and which were very much at the time seen as being anti-nuclear weapons, and especially in opposition to the stationing of American Cruise missiles in the UK.

However, once that fairly glaring political context is dealt with, we have a fine picture of a society on constant guard against external threat. That guard is provided by observers flying aloft in huge, Cody man-lifting kites (yes, named for the 19th and early 20th Century American showman and pioneer aviator, Captain S.P.Cody). The society is depicted in a similar way to Roberts' classic alternate-world novel 'Pavane'. It also has resonances with some of Chris Priest's 'Dream Archipelago' stories from around the same time, especially 'The Negation'. ( )