A Lost Colony Found

In the late 21st century, the faster-than-light travel Schoedinger Drive was invented. It moves things instantaneously across space and time. People left Earth for greener pastures. New colonies, often based on crackpot ideas, started. The problem, unknown at first? Schoedinger travel sometimes sent travelers backwards or forwards in time. Sometimes thousands of years, creating lost colonies.

No Man’s Land: Volume 1, by Sarah Hoyt, deals with the consequences to lost colonies.

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden Viscount Webson (Skip) is a diplomat in the service of Britannia, the second largest empire among worlds colonized by humans. It is a constitutional monarchy founded on an idealized version of 19th-Century Great Britain.

Eerlen Troz is the archmage of Elly. Eerlon's spouse, the king, was assassinated. Eerlon is now on the run with the heir, Brundar Mahar. Elly is a lost colony world, possibly thrown 10,000 years into the past. Founded by colonizers intent on a society of perfect equality, they used genetic engineering to turn their descendants into hermaphrodites. No one knows for sure because, like most lost colonies unable to reconnect with Earth, they reverted to barbarism, losing all records.

Skip was on a diplomatic mission to Drakash, another lost colony that wants to join Britannia. Skip is there to see the treaty signed. Then he discovers they own slaves and are possibly cannibals. No slave society should be offered membership, but Drakash is. When Skip is almost assassinated on Drakash, he is rescued by Brundar Mahar’s agents and taken to Elly, a completely different planet.

Elly uses magic. They call it magic, but it may be magic in the sense that any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. Their skills include teleportation, possibly interstellar teleportation, invaluable to Britannia. Instead of Britannia’s diplomats and scouts reporting Elly, it has been concealed. Something is rotten in Britannia and Drakash. Skip and Eerlen Troz must find out what it is to survive.

Hoyt wrote this after reading The Left Hand of Darkness at age 14. Hoyt felt Ursula Le Guin got a hermaphroditic society wrong, and that she could do better. Forty years later, No Man’s Land is the result.

Whether it is better is an individual judgment. It is an exciting and fast-paced tale, with lots of action, intriguing surprises and a satisfyingly coherent backstory. It is addictive. The first book of a three-part linked novel. Its cliffhanger ending leaves readers eager for the next installment.

No Man’s Land: Volume 1,” by Sarah Hoyt, Goldport Press, September 2025, 273 pages, $4.99 (E-book) (Print version forthcoming)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.