Character guide

Nordenholt

major

Also known as V Nordenholt, Mr. Nordenholt, the Nordenholt, Nordenholt VII Nordenholt, the Nordenholt Gang

Nordenholt rules the sealed-off Clyde Valley as a self-appointed despot, driving mines and factories past breaking point while his spies watch a starving England beyond the frontier. His harshness grows from an obsession with finishing the work before catastrophe overtakes it, and even his closest lieutenants wonder where the man ends and the machine begins. Every early crisis in the Area is ultimately his to answer for.

Elsa Huntingtower

major

Also known as Elsa, Miss Huntingtower

Elsa moves through Nordenholt's offices and drawing rooms with an ease that unsettles the men around her, half confidante and half enigma. She hints at a long, painful story behind her secretaryship but never quite tells it, and the narrator senses a woman designed for softer surroundings yet hardened to harsher work. Her presence keeps the human cost of the experiment visible.

Flint

supporting

Also known as Mr. Flint

Flint built his fortune on motorcars and factory systems before the blight, and his gift for control made him indispensable to Nordenholt's survival scheme. He is a practical man among fanatics and dreamers, loyal but increasingly troubled by what the Area demands of its people. His account is our only window into the making of the new world.

Glendyne

supporting

Glendyne speaks to Jack with a rough candour that strips away illusions about human nature, insisting that reconstruction must be built for flesh-and-blood units rather than ideals. He reports on the night's grim doings and serves as Nordenholt's hard-headed conscience in matters of what can actually be built. His realism shapes how the younger men approach the work ahead.

Wotherspoon

supporting

Also known as Mr. Wotherspoon

Wotherspoon lectures and writes about real investigators without ever originating anything himself, yet his name carries weight with a public hungry for scientific authority. Flint recalls him with a mixture of pity and contempt, a man crushed by knowledge he never truly possessed. His presence marks the boundary between genuine expertise and the theatre of it.

Jack

major

Jack works at the center of the Nitrogen Area's control machinery, drowning in figures and reports while the softer civilisation he knew slips beyond recall. Nordenholt tests him deliberately, showing him the brute foundations of humanity so he will build on rock rather than sand. His doubts and loyalty alike make him the reader's conscience in a world being remade by force.

Reverend John P. Vester

supporting

Also known as the Reverend John P. Wester, the Reverend John, Wester, John

Vester commands vast open-air audiences with a voice built for huge gatherings, yet his cloudy thinking and touch of fanaticism repel the narrator even as his personal force attracts. Nordenholt sees him not as a creator of unrest but as the personality around which existing hysteria crystallises, especially among women, and warns he will break him if he goes too far. His emotional preaching, set against Nordenholt's appeal to reason, makes him the early arc's most unpredictable threat to the Area's fragile order.

Uncle Stanley

supporting

Uncle Stanley belongs to the old world that Nordenholt's despotic enterprise is steadily displacing, and his instinctive resistance marks him as a holdout against the collective discipline the Area demands. His presence sharpens the novel's central tension between individual judgment and the crushing logic of necessity that Nordenholt embodies. Through him the early narrative registers what is being surrendered, quietly and personally, as the great experiment grinds forward.

Henley-Davenport

supporting

Henley-Davenport moves easily between official business and the drawing-room intimacies of Nordenholt's household, escorting him to inspect experiments and sharing in the small social rituals that punctuate the crisis. His presence signals how thoroughly the emergency has fused statecraft with personal loyalty and access. As a functioning insider, he helps anchor the early arc's picture of how Nordenholt's power actually operates day to day.

Hinkinson

minor

Also known as young Hinkinson

A young man who joins the survival community.

Father

minor

Jack's father, a traditionalist who dies early in the crisis.

Simpson

minor

A worker in the survival project.

Lady Angela

minor

Also known as Angela

A socialite who adapts to the new world order.

Grogan

minor

A tough laborer in the survival community.

Mitchell

minor

A scientist working on nitrogen fixation.

Saxenham

minor

Also known as poor Saxenham

A tragic figure who dies during the crisis.

B. Diazotans

minor

A mysterious scientist who discovers the blight's cause.

Geoffrey

minor

A young man who dies early in the story.

Biles

minor

Also known as Mr. Biles

A minor official in the survival project.

Herne

minor

A worker in the nitrogen area.

Mother

minor

Jack's mother, who dies early in the crisis.

Jahveh

minor

A religious figure referenced in the story.

Japanese Nordenholt

minor

Also known as Only Nordenholt

A Japanese counterpart to Nordenholt, leading a parallel effort.

Cecil Rhodes

minor

Historical figure referenced as an inspiration for Nordenholt.

Johnston

minor

A member of the survival council.

Hobbes

minor

A philosopher referenced in debates about society.

Fata Morgana

minor

Also known as XI Fata Morgana

A ship that plays a role in the story.

Syrinx

minor

A mysterious woman associated with the Japanese Nordenholt.

Barclay

minor

A scientist working on the nitrogen problem.

Johnnie

minor

A young boy in the survival community.

Anglesey

minor

A member of the outer world expedition.

Congleton

minor

A minor character in the survival council.

Sanderson

minor

A worker in the survival project.

Molly

minor

A woman in the survival community.

Atkinson

minor

A minor worker in the project.