When Gunn's "Young Art and Old Hector" was published during World War 2, Naomi Mitchison, fellow novelist, and friend criticized it both for its escapism and for the improbable nature of its friendship between Art, an eight-year-old boy, and his grandfatherly neighbor Hector. Stung Gunn doubled down on the relationship and sent them on a journey in dystopia, a thoroughly serious one! On an expedition to the local river, Art and Hector seeing a salmon and thinking after poaching it, accidentally fall in and emerge the 'other side' of the pool in what they come to recognize as the Green Isle. It is a land of abundance as summer draws to a close, harvest approaching, full of healthy and apparently content people. But they are greeted by a 'watcher' who tells them to walk to the Seat - a three-day journey, not to deviate from the road, and to stay at the prescribed inn. The man appears only to think from his head and from the surface of his face at that. He ...