Tracy, Half-Sick of Shadows (2010)

Erika Tracy, Half-Sick of Shadows. Shadowfire Press, 2010. Pp. 62. e-Book $3.75.

Reviewed by Sam Kelly

This novella is a tricky thing, and every time it looks as though it’s settled on a set of tropes then it turns a corner and becomes something else. The evacuee child arriving in a strange new place that isn’t the magical fairyland she expected, but instead a grim mining village... the child going to live with her mysterious magic relatives in their rambling gothic house... the talented teenager finding her place among other witches and among normal people... real fears and imagined ones, and learning to tell the difference...

There are a couple of strands running right through the tale, though; one of them is the idea of difference and prejudice. Witches and warlocks are feared and tolerated, the victims of bullying and casual prejudice; it’s easy to draw an analogy to Jews, given the World War II setting. The other is the relationships between men and women, made sharp and tense by tradition, poverty, and fear.

Magic is presented as a very feminine thing throughout the book. There are warlocks, we’re told, but we never see or hear from an adult warlock, and all the uses of magic we see are for very traditional womanly things—there’s even a spell for washing up, and another to cover the signs of domestic abuse. It’s explicitly contrasted to coal-mining, which is a masculine occupation; it’s the only thing the two men in this horribly dysfunctional family can bond over. As in all mining villages, the pit is the centre of life in Glynarien, and the rescue efforts when a shaft collapses are the only communal purpose we see. Of course, there’s a lot that our protagonist, doubly an outsider, doesn’t see; it’s as though once she’s made the decision to marry, her life outside the home is gone, and all we see is the isolation and depression of a foreign pit wife as her relationship with family withers and twists.

The PDF design is acceptable enough, with a readable font at a sensible point size, and the cover shows a predictable landscape-and-faces montage. It’s very clearly a modern British village street, not a 1940s one, but I can forgive a lot for a relationship novel with a man and a woman on the cover, both looking directly at the reader.

The world-building is good but sparse, with sketched details showing us the shape of a society; the Welsh names ring true-enough, if not perfect, and the social exclusions are all the more real for what we aren’t shown. This isn’t the Celtic-twilight, English-children-on-holiday Arthurian Wales of so many books; it’s the real working-class, churchgoing land.

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Vandermeer, Finch (2010)

Jeff VanderMeer, Finch. Corvus, 2009. Pp. 320. ISBN 9781848874770. £12.99.

Reviewed by The Exploding Boy

I am not a detective, Jeff Vandermeer’s eponymous hero tells us at the beginning of Finch. I am not a detective.

It’s an interesting confession, considering the novel’s rich noir influence and the character of Finch evidently based on that of Philip Marlowe. All the same, it soon becomes clear that the writer has mischievously wrong-footed the reader, and that the denial perfectly fits all the paradox and paranoia about to come. This is not downtown LA of the 1940’s but the City of Ambergris in some unspecified future, the same Fantasy milieu that informed Vandermeer’s previous outings City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword.

Finch, however, easily works as a stand-alone novel. Readers of those earlier books will revisit the same industrial, rust and emerald city, where mercantile houses Hoegbotton and Frankwrithe destroyed each other in their war for power. Readers of those earlier novels will find that much has changed. The gray caps, a race of subterranean humanoid fungi, have Risen and overwhelmed the city. Giant, spore-laden mushrooms have sprouted from the streets, looming to rival the tendril-choked spires. The walls and pavement are spongy and flesh-like, and Partials, those humans half-transformed into fungi themselves, keep an ever-watchful eye over the drug-suppressed and terrified population. There are internment camps reminiscent of the Third Reich. There are unexplained disappearances. There is ever present threat.

Against this vivid and sinister background, Jeff Vandermeer unfolds his mystery with the panache we have come to expect from him. There has been a murder at 239 Manzikert Avenue, Apartment 525. One corpse cut in half (à la The Black Dahlia). One corpse human. With no leads and a truly unsettling gray cap overseer breathing down his neck, lawman Finch finds himself plunged into a search for the truth where the truth quickly becomes stranger than fiction, or perhaps, considering the already fantastic environment, even stranger than that. The victims remain unidentified. One resembles a man thought 100 years dead. Surrounding these puzzles are the wider puzzles of the city itself. What is the purpose of the twin towers rising over the bay? What connection do the murders have to an attempted genocide 600 years ago? Who is the Lady in Blue, the enigmatic leader of the rebel underground? Vandermeer draws us into a tangled web of intrigue and suspense, and the ride is never less than thrilling.

As a concept, Finch is breathtaking. The book’s flavour is a collision of weird and urban influences. Most notably, the Chandleresque noir, always at the forefront with the crisp style, the inner gritty musings and deftly controlled set pieces. Draped over this are allusions to Lovecraft and Burroughs, peppered with a modernistic dash of Philip K.Dick, Richard Matheson and James Ellroy. It’s a heady brew and one gets the feeling that in less capable hands, this tale may never have become more than just interesting homage. But Vandermeer pulls off a rare trick. Not only does Finch deliver one of the best noir thrillers of modern times, it also manages to transcend influence and becomes something remarkably other. Vandermeer has not just genuflected to Great American Writers, with Finch he has squared up against them and potentially joined their ranks. The characters are real—they live, love, despair and mutate—and cannot fail to move or repulse you. The plot is tight and convincing. The pages fly by. The atmosphere is genuinely disturbing. Finch provided many a shudder to this reader, more than I can recall from other works in recent years. Parts are deliciously gross. Through it all is a compellingly human and melancholy streak, which lifts this novel into literary realms.

It is doubtful you’ll have read a book like this before. There have been comparisons to China Miéville’s The City and the City, an equally stunning novel, but here gritty emotion in relation to the alien replaces the politics of Mieville’s work. Newcomers to the New Weird may find themselves on uncertain ground. Those unfamiliar with steampunk noir might feel a need to adjust their sets. I did wonder how a reader unaccustomed to Vandermeer’s milieu might engage with the novel, at least initially. The back-story is a little on the sparse side and Vandermeer does not coddle his readers, a style that undeniably suits the book, but one that may not prove so alluring to the novice. That would be a crying shame because Finch deserves a much wider audience than slipstream genres can generally provide. Nevertheless, the warp and weft (and there is a lot of warp here) of Vandermeer’s world will soon grow on anyone—much like fungi—and fans of weird fic and those hungry for something different will more than quench their thirst here.

In the final analysis, Finch isn’t about genre. Vandermeer’s genius lies in showing us the power and potential of speculative fiction, mapping a road into the twenty first century. With Finch, the author reinforces his reputation as a pioneer and if it has to be about genre, then this novel more than proves that the New Weird—or whatever you want to call it—is very much alive and kicking, perhaps even in its infancy.

On the strength of Finch, one certainly hopes so.

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Greatest Uncommon Denominator #5 (2010)

Greatest Uncommon Denominator (GUD), issue 5 (2010). Pp. 200. $3.50 PDF / $12 print.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Stephen Hawking is reported as saying that if we find intelligent life out there somewhere, we should not attempt to make contact, presumably because to do so would be very dangerous indeed. Well, T F Davenport’s story ‘Nature’s Children’ makes abundantly clear some of the potential perils and disasters inherent in inter-species contact, not least the complete misunderstanding and incomprehension on all sides when faced with alien culture, civilisation and behaviour. The story is, quite frankly, a masterpiece, complex, beautifully observed and set against a vivid, lush backdrop of a planet seething with life, both animal and vegetable. It also sets the standard for this impressive, but sadly (at least to me) unknown journal, GUD.

Kendall, The Bride Stripped Bare (2009)

Rachel Kendall, The Bride Stripped Bare. Doghorn Publishing, 2009. Pp. 114. ISBN 9781907133046. £9.99.

Reviewed by N.A. Jackson

I imagine the author of these stories composing these tiny, incisive works of fiction as if she were setting up one of those miniature theatres, made of paper, in which the characters are poked onto the stage to perform their predetermined roles. With the sweetest of smiles, Kendall will begin to make them suffer. Taking its title from a 1923 art work by Marcel Duchamp: ‘The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even’, this collection sets out to replicate Duchamp’s project of depicting the erotic relationship between men and women. Kendall’s perspective, however, is entirely of the 21st century. Although the stories are played out in the real world, this is life stripped of the comforting veneer of civilization.

Hughes, Postmodern Mariner (2008)

Rhys Hughes, The Postmodern Mariner. Screaming Dreams, 2008. Pp. 160. ISBN 9780955518522. £7.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

A delight, that’s what this book is. Funny, touching and as easily digestible as Frabjal Troose’s ginger biscuit moon that hangs over Rommel Cobra’s Sea of Tea. Yes, we are in the surreal, unpredictable and often achingly funny universe of Rhys Hughes. Hang logic on the hook by the door, suspend disbelief over the clothes rail to dry and only enter if you have a sense of humour and a love of the absurd. The Postmodern Mariner is a slight book, decorated with stunning cover art by Steve Upham and split into three distinct but linked sections, which are all part of Hughes’ 1,000 linked stories masterplan, a monster story cycle spread over anthologies and magazines everywhere.

Allan, A Thread of Truth (2008)

Nina Allan, A Thread Of Truth. Eibonvale Press, 2008. Pp. 224. ISBN 9780955526800. £9.95/$15.00.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Delicate and fragile as a spider’s web, that’s what the stories in this collection are, carefully woven together with such subtlety that a moment’s distraction will break the spell and quickly obscure the meaning. The clues are there, you just have to hold your breath, tread carefully and read, instead of simply reading. A Thread of Truth is published by the intriguing Eibonvale Press and comes complete with yet another, striking David Rix cover. Eibonvale are making a name for themselves with the sheer physical gorgeousness of their books and this in no exception: the artwork really does reflect the stories, its splintered images redolent with enigma and flavoured with menace. (Disclaimer: this reviewer has a novel accepted by the Press.)

The collection starts with ‘Amethyst’, in which a young girl glimpses a layer of truth behind the facade of her best friend’s family. Or does she? Perhaps they are who they say they are. The story contains a paragraph that, for me, sums up the whole book; “I had never learned to read music. The notes she had spaced on the five ruled lines were just dots to me. I ignored them and read the words.”

‘Amethyst’ is followed by ‘Ryman’s Suitcase’ with an opening that is pure of W Somerset Maugham. Here we have the locum who has taken over a missing GP’s patients, the woman who wants him, an unsettling children’s party clown and the mystery of the missing doctor himself. An intriguing mix and, again, the clues are there...

Closing ‘Ryman’s Suitcase’ we are taken, abruptly, to a planet called Magna and presented with the mystery of the dragons that are part of its fauna. ‘Bird Songs at Eventide’ is set in a research colony on that world. There is no going back to earth, these people are committed and it is the sense of being cut off from home carefully melded with the excitement of discovery that gives the story its tension. “We’re seeing things for the first time.” Says one of the protagonists, “Nobody’s done that for centuries, not since Columbus or Vasco De Gama.”

From Magna we travel back to Earth and a road called ‘Queen South’ where a young man, engaged to be married to the talented Lisa becomes fascinated by a blonde girl who is the very opposite of his fiancée, who is as spontaneous and affecting as she is infuriating. Again, a story with delightful subtlety and gentleness.

The feisty and demanding Justina leads us from ‘Queen South’ to a hotel called ‘The Vicar with the Seven Rigs’ on an adolescent expedition to break into the place, as much a test of her admirers’ devotion as curiosity about the old building. The characters are vivid and each one individual and carefully drawn. The story starts simply enough but ends as reality shatters into disorientation and uncertainly. What are we seeing? What has happened? Effective, discomforting.

‘Heroes’ is filled with travellers, including Wal Carter the lorry driver, a pigeon called Hero and her enigmatic, eccentric owner. Everyone the young protagonist meets has a past. Are they interlinked, or just part of the structure of their lives? And then there is the legend of Hero and Leander, and the untimely death of a young violinist in a plane crash. Sadly not quite as engaging for me personally as the other stories in the collection, ‘Heroes’ is, nonetheless an intriguing brew.

Still travelling we reach the ‘Terminus’ for a journey on the Moscow underground. A dark, claustrophobic tale this is the nearest Nina Allen get to horror in his collection, but even then it is dreamlike and more unnerving then horrific. From the very outset of the trip we know that something is wrong, that something is going to happen...

And so to the final ‘Thread of Truth’, the title story, the longest story and my personal favourite. This is a wonderful, subtle, fragile narrative about an arachnophobe who tries to cure himself by enrolling on a spider hunt in my own home county of Suffolk. The narrator is a fully realised, affable character who is quickly drawn to one of the female members of the spider hunting group. Their relationship is painted with a light touch, the object of his affection, pleasant but enigmatic and at the story's heart, as with ‘Heroes, there is a very disturbing legend. This is the most compelling tale in the collection, and the most direct though still painted with light, pastel strokes. A wonderful climax to the collection.

A Thread of Truth is not without faults of course, the most irritating being the fact that it is not always easy to know the age and sex of its protagonists until well into a story. Perhaps this is part of the ambiguity, but it did cause me to stumble a little in a couple of cases when I realised that the image I had mind-painted of a character turned out to be way off the mark. The proof reading could also have even tighter; again, while not shatteringly bad this does interrupt the smooth reading of the text.

None of these, however, detract from the sheer, delicacy of this anthology. It reminded me of a Thelonius Monk jazz piece, the theme fragile, everything held together by the finest of threads. There is originality here, unpredictability. There is no second guessing, no obvious ending looming on the horizon. These stories have to be taken away, thought over, pondered. A collection, then, for those who don’t want the obvious, who dislike being told all the time, who like to be left to work it out for themselves. Stories that are offered, then released to the reader.

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Ashley, Once and Future Cities (2009)

Allen Ashley, Once and Future Cities. Eibonvale Press, 2009. Pp. 424. ISBN 9780955526886. £25.00.

Reviewed by The Exploding Boy

Allen Ashley is a BFS award-winning author and a stalwart of the independent press scene. Once and Future Cities is his third collection of shorts, and delves deep into the urban apocalyptic mythos to present twenty-two beguiling stories.

Sharp observations of the modern day sprawl and its careworn residents are the order of the day here. Celebrity culture, the beauty obsessed, and inner-city paranoia all go into the mix to create a shrewd overview of contemporary life. The result should make for a depressing read, but Ashley’s prose and lightness of touch guide you through the post-industrial fallout like a comforting hand, and humour is never far from the surface. Ashley merges the mundane and the fantastic with serious aplomb, presenting the reader with a veritable feast of seaside sirens, robotic dolls, and corporate/religious team-building jaunts. Don’t ask—it would ruin the surprise. All of this is set against a background of disaffected lovers, windblown litter and TV junk, which serve to lure you deeper into Ashley’s bleak, broken but bittersweet world.

Thompson, Ultrameta (2009)

Douglas Thompson, Ultrameta. Eibonvale Press, 2009. Pp. 336. ISBN 9780956214713. £10.75.

Reviewed by Hugh Cayless

Ultrameta is hard to categorize. Part scifi, part detective story, part extended meditation on the human condition and the modern world. Its “hero” is Alexander Stark, a University professor, who goes missing, apparently amnesiac, and reappears after a decade, then kills himself. Or he and his wife, Charlotte, may have died in a car crash, and the novel’s entire setting may be fiction written by Stark. Or (again) they may both have flitted off to another plane of existence. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the hero is a consciousness that has existed throughout history. This consciousness was somehow tapped into by Stark, now (apparently) dead, and he wrote about his experiences from its point of view, moving from subject to subject, leaving that subject when he or she commits suicide and awakening the next day in a new body, often unaware of its history or what to do next. It/he/she is guided and aided by a mysterious group of “Keepers” who provide clothing, instructions, etc..

The book is structured as a series of short vignettes, which vary in coherence from straightforward narrative to poetic stream-of-consciousness. The many vignettes form a multifaceted view into this fragmented world consciousness, which some perceive more clearly than others. They are interspersed with scenes of the investigation into Stark’s disappearance by a detective inspector, Walter Dundas, and a reporter, Martha Lucy, as they find connections between Stark’s stories and events in the real world. As an example of how the book turns in on itself, these inserts were found on Stark’s body after his suicide. So he has been telling their story as much as they have been reading into his.

The tone of the book is melancholic. Decay and alienation are constant themes. Humans and the structures they build decaying together and becoming one is recurring trope. Terrorism (especially 9/11), imagined as a confrontation between ancient and modern worldviews, casts its shadow as well, as do class and inequality.

Ultrameta wears its classical influences on its sleeve: stories include settings like Roman Britain and Greek myth; the organization recalls Dante’s inferno, even with Vergil-like guides on the journey; chapter names are often Latin or Greek(ish) words. It also buys into the Ancient Greek notion (found in Hesiod, for example), that humankind is in decline from an ancient ideal (in which this collective (un)conscious was known and understood). This decline has evidently been going on for a long time—we get an extensive lecture from a Druid to a Roman centurion on the subject in one story. It doesn’t always get things quite right when it strays into ancient stuff: the plural of necropolis is necropoleis, not necropoli; Antonine is an adjective meaning “of Antoninus”, so Antonine’s wall is wrong; similarly, miles, not milite, and Picti, not Pictii.

The book is many-layered and challenging. Sometimes too clever for its own good. For example, I found the stories that imagine an ancient mind confronting the modern world rather unconvincing (too much of a modern consciousness projecting itself outside and looking back), and the shifting focus tends to bog the reader down a little. Lots of it hangs together well, though, and it’s fun to go back from the finish and re-read, seeing connections where they weren’t apparent before. On the whole, the book is an interesting, if not always successful experiment.

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Butler (ed.) Triangulation: Dark Glass (2009)

Pete Butler (ed.), Triangulation: Dark Glass. PARSEC Ink, 2009. Pp. 156. ISBN 9780578031033. $12.00 h/c; $1.99 PDF.

Reviewed by Louisa Thompson

Triangulation: Dark Glass is PARSEC Ink’s latest anthology of short speculative fiction based around the collective theme of ‘dark glass’. This core theme is loose enough to allow a broad range of style and ability but tight enough to ensure a cohesive body of work within sixteen distinct tales. The collection’s front cover artwork by Vincent Chong is well-suited to the subject matter and the inner pages are pleasingly printed with an absolute minimum of errors.

However, things don’t start well. Please don’t go thinking I didn’t try, because I did—three times over—but our opening story, ‘The Milton Feinhoff Problem’, utterly baffles me. The back of the book picks out this Milton business as a highlight, but the disappointing reality is a few pages of oddly arch facts about a multiplying man called Milton Feinhoff. And why should I care about Milton Feinhoff? I know nothing about him except his preferred pizza toppings. We never find out why new Miltons appear or why they eventually die out, and we most certainly never get a reason to care. As a reader I need more than the facts to give me that emotional connection with a short story. I need a visceral, immediate hook on which to hang an idea if it’s to be recognised by my own frame of reference. The words in front of me have to become my story, with my cast and my horizon otherwise they’re nothing more than the prose version of someone else’s dream; enormously important to them but pointless to anyone else. This tale reads like a synopsis of the story we never see. The facts are all in place but the intrigue and the heart are missing. It’s a nice idea and one worth exploring but unless I’ve entirely missed the point this is a dig still waiting to be excavated. Forster urges us to ‘always connect’, and I agree. Please help us. Let us in.

Miltons aside now. Let’s move on to happier thoughts. ‘Saint Darwin’s Spirituals’ is a fascinating gallop through a ghostly London of corsets and cobblestones shrouded in spectral shadows. Here, in stark contrast to the blank presentation of Milton Feinhoff, love and pain hide in every shadow. D K Thompson’s ‘ghostgasms’ (“all the pleasures of intimacy without the messy clean-up”) are a tremendous concept full of phantasmal potential surrounded by a provocative cast of unusual characters. His writing flows with an easy confidence that inspires trust in the story and the rich descriptions draw the reader straight into the heart of things, keeping us locked and sharing Lucy’s agonizing search for lost love until the last line. ‘Saint Darwin’s Spirituals’ has the mark of a great tale: and leaving it behind was a wrench.

The wrench feels even keener as I launch into ‘Imaginal Friend’. This is a perfectly fine, if slightly insipid SF tale of humans trying to solve clues of vengeance and battle left behind by a long-extinct alien race. It gets a ‘could do better’ for its blinkered, us-against-the-aliens focus, so please beware of the following spoiler of sorts. There’s a pantomime quality surrounding the plot, rather to the exclusion of all other literary possibilities. We’re carefully led by the hand through every page to ensure we don’t miss the supposed dénouement, but have been shouting ‘HE’S the alien! It’s behind you!’ for so many pages that Chiacchia’s final taa-daa is nothing but a whimper. This makes for gently absorbing reading but I fear you’ll finish the last page sitting exactly where you were when you began. The journey is slight, the emotional impact imperceptible.

I offer this same criticism of ‘Souls on Display’, which tells of fake souls being forged out of glass to replace those broken by careless owners or, in this case, rowdy road-hockey kids. Perhaps I’m too cold and jaded to appreciate the subtlety of the sentiment but I was struggling to suspend my disbelief for Kurt Kirchmeier’s story. Too many questions were clouding my enjoyment. When does this physical manifestation of someone’s soul appear? Is it full-size at birth which raises other, more biological issues, or is a baby born holding a tiny speck of glass? I didn’t sense much ‘story’ behind the words, except the mental image of a writer sucking on the end of a pen and thinking to himself ‘what if our souls existed for all to see?’—which is a great idea. But this story reads like the first attempt to answer that pondering thought rather than a literary pleasure honed and worked for a reader’s mind to tumble over.

However, David Seigler’s ‘One Touch To Remember’ very clearly meets the collection’s brief. Jennifer finds a gallery where Roy is storing memories of powerful emotions behind dark glass and proclaiming it as art of a sensory nature. “Sight is the crudest of the senses. I deal in emotion.” But Roy’s own memories are soon to make a devastating reappearance. This is polished fiction with everything in its proper place—full background check on our main characters, a clearly defined arc in the plot—but the polish has slightly rubbed off any sheen of freshness or sharp surprise. The story is strong and colourful but somehow not the absorbing barn-burner it could have been with a few more risks taken.

‘Audition For Evil’ is a unique and thought-provoking tableau, well-constructed and satisfying in its pace. The darkness is again within the mirrored glass but also reflected in the wickedness of its mistress. And ‘Broken Things’ is one of those stories that makes me glad this collection found me. Ellen is trying to save her dead mother’s genie, Vimm, from the horrors of impending mortality after accidentally smashing his bottle. Dark glass indeed. The story is warm and honest and occasionally heart-breaking with a rare (and welcome) focus on the subtleties of a mother/daughter relationship. It brings human fears into play and touches delicately on pain, loneliness and the complexities of grief without too much lazy drear. The ending is touching and unexpected to the point of chills.

Triangulation: Dark Glass is a nicely paced adventure with lesser works sitting patiently amongst some true beauties. Others worthy of mention here include the scorching, soul-searching of ‘Deadglass’, and ‘On The Path’s soul-powered plow fraught with ancestral angst and moral dilemma. But the collection saves its finest two for last. The anthology’s penultimate adventure finds the sorcerer DuHarren unhappily passing the cursed moniker of Devil’s Disciple down the line in Loretta Sylvestre’s ‘A More Beautiful Monster’. This full, lush tale reaches maximum thrill in a matter of paragraphs, its potent language of blood, sweetness and fear exposing the duality of a priest and the razor-sharp line between the seductive longings of good and evil. Sylvestre writes through the darkness with a quiet grace and a careful touch, never letting this moving tale flop into the cliches of fiery damnation and screaming vicars.

‘Seeing Is’ renders a polaroid snapshot of hot summer childhood with precision and poetry as our final story. The imaginative detail is superb and confidently veers off-plot far enough to offer those little extras that make it truly sing. Our hero, Jody, is the sort of kid who scratches his initials in wet cement with a twig. He’s a kid we understand, even if he’s also a kid who finds a talking eye in the pavement. Craig Wolf’s writing has strong SF credentials but hasn’t forgotten what makes a human heart beat faster. He follows an untrodden path to illuminate some well-worn truths about those difficult tricklings of adult consciousness into childish naivety. Those awful moments when the grown-ups first reveal themselves to be fallible—and decisions must be faced as to whether you choose to accept and see or push it all away and remain in the blind bubble of childish simplicity. Jody makes his own choice and it’s not without pain.

This is a nicely balanced, thoughtful collection of short stories presenting an intriguingly varied translation of the ‘dark glass’ theme. The diversity of these interpretations adds a layer of interest above and beyond the sixteen actual plots and I found myself occasionally contemplating the nature of individuality and personal discrimination. Triangulation’s contributor guidelines for entry called for ‘entertaining and literate stories’, and these winning picks have, on the whole, met the brief brilliantly.

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Harvey, Winter Song (2009)

Colin Harvey, Winter Song. Angry Robot Books, 2009. Pp. 409. ISBN 9780007321018. $10.20 / €5.80.

Reviewed by Djibril al-Ayad

Colin Harvey's Winter Song is one of the first books to appear in the new genre imprint from HarperCollins, the promising-looking Angry Robot Books, promotional copies of which have been circulated by the BSFA and elsewhere. The story is both a hard science fiction adventure with cultural details that should please historical fiction enthusiasts, and a study of convincing and sympathetic, while complex and sometimes infuriating human characters, in all their tragic and comic aspects, their familiarity and their alienness. The world-building is proficient, detailed and explicit, as the ice planet Isheimur batters the cast of characters with an impressive array of dangers. But behind this is the more subtle Universe-building, with details hinted at and a whole never quite glimpsed, while characters are the products of their environment, and can be seen to grow and as they adapt to their settings.

The narration shifts abruptly from character to character in the early stages of the book, with a close focus third-person voice for each of the three protagonists, plus a disorienting second-person narration for the most autistic and solipsistic character. With no omniscient narrator to give the book its moral compass, this is a subtle and intelligent novel full of social observation and characterization. We see from close-up the functioning of a "degenerated" society, the repression, especially of women, in a hierarchical and patriarchal culture; the women are indeed repressed by their social positions, not only by the men around them, and the men are no more free to chose their own fates (although they are, inevitably, less constrained and brutalized). Harvey's novel does a good job of undermining the romance and idealization of Viking culture, while simultaneously showing a certain admiration for the Germanic warrior's code of honour. It is to his credit that he explores these repressive, primitive, conservative and reactionary cultural features without using Muslim imagery as so many science fiction writers today seem to.

Karl is the pilot and solo crew-member of a sentient spaceship that is attacked by radical Traditionals while on a long-haul journey through an apparently unsettled system. He ejects just before his ship is destroyed, and falls into the atmosphere of the winter planet Isheimur with only his healing nanophytes and micrometre-thick lifegel to protect him. Crash-landing on the icy surface of the world he is terribly injured and mentally scarred by the ordeal. Karl is rescued by Ragnar, the tyrant and respected gothi of a wealthy but desperate farmstead on the surface of this isolated planet, who saves the mysterious spaceman's life but demands a dire debt of service in return for his hospitality. The raving and schizoid off-worlder is nursed back to health by the tragic Bera, a grieving, shamed and bullied young woman who is being punished by her adoptive family for having—and losing—a child out of wedlock.

The icy planet Isheimur, which orbits a binary star and is in a period of almost perpetual winter and thin atmosphere, is populated by inedible beasts, monsters named after figures from Icelandic mythology, and devolved humanoid "trolls". This freezing world—I wonder if the horror of its description would have been as intense had I not read it during one of the coldest Januaries for many years—is the setting for a story in three acts. In the first part, beautifully observed and written, we see life on the struggling farmstead under a tyrannical gothi, with a varied cast of characters and a sometimes claustrophobic atmosphere. The second part is a journey across the wilderness, a thrilling adventure, pursued by Norsemen and facing dangers every step, the protagonists learning the limits of their human (even enhanced human) abilities. The third part—in my view the weakest, with perhaps the most contrived plot-twists and morally problematic decisions—is a space journey on a doomed ship.

Winter Song is a very competent book by an author with several novels to his name already. It is nicely packaged by Angry Robot Books, with an unmistakably scifi but not tasteless cover, and generally good production quality. (There are a few avoidable mistakes in the text, such as a couple of partially edited sentences, with what seem to be rewritten clauses with the original accidentally not deleted, and trivial inconsistencies such as the statement that when they first left the farm the fugitives travelled "a hundred kilometers per day" but later only half that, and a few pages later, that they had started out covering "over fifty kilometers a day" but later only half that. On the whole proofreading and editing are excellent.) That the characters, social interactions and cultures are so nicely constructed and observed is no detraction from this novel's claim to be a hard science fiction adventure, and it is the stronger book for it.

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Whates, The Gift of Joy (2009)

Ian Whates, The Gift of Joy. NewCon Press, 2009. Pp. 254. ISBN 9781907069017. £9.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Joy is the best word to describe The Gift of Joy, a collection of mostly (but not only) science fiction stories from Ian Whates, because that is what comes across from start to finish, a sense of sheer enjoyment, a feeling that writing is nothing but pleasure. Here is someone, you think, who loves writing. Even its striking Vincent Chong cover crackles with energy, there is light and dazzle, technology and menace, a perfect representation of what is inside.

Take the opener, and title story, for example. Here we have the ultimate gigolo, the consummate tribute act, someone who can literally turn themselves into their client’s fantasy. Then there is the breathless, not-a-word-wasted, time-running-out thriller ‘The Final Hour’ in which there are only 60 minutes to save the universe. War, the real meaning of heroism and its consequences are examined in ‘The Battle for Paradise’, which is a vivid, visceral epic in which men fight and die but for a cause, which like all causes, is seldom really one that is worth such a monstrous loss of life. ‘Flesh and Metal’ is yet another fast and furious thriller, man on a mission verses killing machine, cross and double-cross, threat on every side, who do you trust? Another loner manoeuvres his way through deceit and danger in ‘One Night in London’, an enjoyable and imaginative package-to-be-delivered yarn.

On a more thoughtful note there is ‘Fear of Fog’ which is a tricky, elusive tale about a couple caught out in a fog that reeks of malevolence and oncoming menace. The woman seems to know what is going to happen, and there are other things that seem wrong, atmospheric this one. Another slower and darker piece is ‘Ghosts in the Machine’, the haunters of the foul and shadowed underground of the city; lost souls or something more vital?

For light relief there is ‘Glitch in the System’, set in a village battered by a stream of lorries taking a short cut through the lanes, and ‘Hint of Mystery’ set in the competitive world of Asian food.

Tel’s Favourite is ‘The Sum of the Past’, once again an examination of identity, of why we are what we are, told by a space hero who is, or perhaps isn’t such a hero after all. A clever story laced with subtlety beneath its portrayal of the brash and bold.

There is more, a lot more, each one filled with that same energy and vitality that sets this collection apart from so many I have read. It is not completely devoid of cynicism, yet even the darker stories hold some element of the upbeat. Is it the style of writing, the pace, it’s hard to put a finger on exactly what it is, but nothing in here left me beaten and bruised and in need of fresh air.

This joy is not shallow however. Okay there are out-and-out adventure stories, but there are difficult questions asked, examinations of the human condition carried out in the extreme laboratories of fantastical fiction. There is mood and shade among the bright colours. ‘Ghosts in the Machine’ for example is a powerful allegory of rich and poor, of the privileged, blind to the grinding, oil-covered machinery that maintains their bright and smooth running world. There is consideration of the true nature of heroism, of the indescribably waste of life wrought by war. Political folly and national ambitions are dissected in ‘The Laughter of Ghosts’.

The book is not without blemish of course. For me, the weakest link is ‘It’s About Time!’, a chronological romp inspired by the time travel tales of Isaac Asimov. I just don’t like this type of story and, sadly, this one did nothing to change my mind. Also a lot of the stories are set in the type of dark, deadly and noirish underbelly of the futuristic city which readers find themselves visiting more and more in the pages of the SF story. That said, however, Whates does zap those much-used places with a much-needed lick of fresh paint and so can be forgiven for leading us into such familiar dens and dives yet again. The short afterward to each story was, I think, unnecessary. For me the stories were very strong and able to stand up without explanation as to their origins and also these potted autobiographies brought me back to earth too quickly, I wanted to carry on believing that I had been to a real Universe of Wonder for just a little longer.

Ian Whates’ writing is smooth and immensely readable. There is no pretentiousness, words are well chosen and the narrative straight to the point, but at the same time able to connect the reader emotionally to the cast of these stories and that, along with an electric imagination is his strong point, is what keeps the pages turning and the bedside lamp glowing far beyond its normal switch-off time.

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Fry, Mindful of Phantoms (2009)

Gary Fry, Mindful of Phantoms. Gray Friar Press, 2009. Pp. 276. ISBN 9781906331078. $26.00 / £14.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Supernatural fiction tends to be gathered together into a general, rather messy pile made up of vampires, monsters, blood-stained fang and claw, crazed, demon-possessed killers etc. In some bookshops it is even dumped into the same out-of-the-way dark corner as science fiction and fantasy. Okay, there are overlaps, and long may they lap over, but for me the ghost story is a separate entity, a sub-genre replete with its own mores and tropes. The ghost story is rooted deeply in human emotion. Ghosts themselves often wander the earth because of unfinished business, unresolved love, justice to be done. Ghosts are seldom demon-possessed killers or in need of flesh, blood and souls to feed on. Ghosts are that part of us that cannot be fed or touched, our souls I suppose, the intensely emotional part of our makeup that has somehow survived and needs to fulfil one final purpose before rest can be found.

Gary Fry’s Mindful of Phantoms fits this definition perfectly. Here you will find the lingering and often dangerous remains of human emotion made manifest and explored classically through the medium (no pun intended but it is a neat one don’t you think?) of the ghost story. Fry himself is an author who fascinates me. I often feel that there is a lot more going on in his work than meets the eye, that there are layers to be peeled away before the real text can be laid bare. It is in the ghost story, therefore, that Fry’s explorations of the human condition find a good home.

So, to the book itself. Mindful of Phantoms, a clever title, another neat pun. The cover art, suitably dark and unsettling, is the work of the author himself. The edition I read, a handy sized and pleasant-to-handle hardback.

There are 18 stories in all, none of them overstays its welcome but all are long enough to fully develop character and theme. These characters are realistic, people you could meet on your way through life, builders, teachers, newlyweds, the old and the young. They live in this world, in houses like ours, in streets like ours. And, importantly, their motives and pressures, their emotional souls are like ours. What they want are the normal, the mundane and necessary things that make life work. Indeed, it is these everyday needs and desires that form the foundation on which the supernatural element is built, giving the stories three solid dimensions and delivering a hefty emotional jolt to the reader. None of the of the protagonists are tiresome ghost hunters or mindless gun-carriers and, importantly, none of them are the standard angry, alienated small press loner-loser. Something I found refreshing about the collection because more and more I want to grab Mr Small Press Hero, tell him to pull himself together, get a job and make up with his long-suffering girlfriend.

The opener, ‘School of Fought’ sets the tone nicely. Acted out in a private boarding school it has all the elements of the classic ghost story, an old building, a dark secret seldom spoken about but buried in the shallowest of graves and justice still to be done. It also reveals an M R Jamesian ambiguity that permeates most of these tales and one that, for the most part, works well because the glimpsed, the imagined monster is always more frightening than the full-on horror.

‘Black Dogs’ takes us into more subtle ground where the ghosts may be real, or they may be imagined. Whichever they are, they are certainly no less unsettling. Yes, it is a tale of shadows and lurking menace but it is also an examination of family politics, of father-and-son love and this is what gives it its strength. ‘The Tree House’, ostensibly a tale of possession, also considers family tension as seen through the eyes of a young boy who is given the gift of a tree house by a shadowy benefactor. In ‘On the Wings’ a young lad struggles for acceptance in that most terrifying of all jungles, the school playground. He chooses his friends badly, and his own talents and strengths suffer as a result, he finds cruelty coiled in himself, and all the while something dark and monstrous is circling about him. A real monster, or a manifestation of his own guilt and frustration? Or both? Again, questions and no comfortable answers, one of the great strengths of this book.

Among the longer stories is ‘Unfriendly Fire’ which features an aging and recently widowed academic who is seeking some peace by the sea. He is an affable character, and, in the end, an unlikely detective, because a chance encounter leads him into yet another of Fry’s simple-yet-complex mysteries. It represents the slightly lighter side of the collection, a side that includes ‘The Price to Pay’, the tale of an unpleasant Estate Agent who finds more to a property than its prime location and suitability for the DIY enthusiast. A gang of builders take centre stage for another entertaining slice of darkness in ‘Figure of Fun’. Having spent the first twenty years of my own working life on building sites I found this bunch realistic and engaging, and the ghost/spirit/evil force original and truly menacing.

I have a pair of favourites; I know normally I go for one but I can’t decide between the two. The first is ‘Man’s Best Friend’ in which a woman who has fled from an abusive relationship discovers that escape is not as easy as she would have liked to believe. There is a tightness to this story and, again, that out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye M R James ambiguity, which heightens the sense of dread and arouses the got-to-finish-this curiosity of the reader.

‘Index of an Enigma’ is the other Tel’s Favourite. The tension between husband and wife, suspicion, self-pity and a vivid I've-been-there descriptions of the dreaded professional conference gives this tale its edge. I was quickly connected to the protagonist, and, even though I didn’t like him, was along for the ride and not willing to get off until I’d seen it through.

On the down-side, some of the prose was a little clumsy and clunky, but this was a small price to pay for the journey. When he is flying, Fry’s style is individual and interesting. He is able to engage the emotion, he takes you with him and there is enough unpredictability to keep you once he has you. Also, there is a tendency for the ghosts (real or imagined) to be glimpsed in a similar way, a face at a window or a figure lurking among the trees and so on. I know this is gives a phantom its menace, its shivery, half-seen fearfulness, but I would have liked a little variety in the manifestation department.

Having said that, it in no way detracts from the excellence of this book. Mindful of Phantoms does what a collection of ghost stories should do. It removes the soul, the glowing, indefinable part of ourselves we call our emotions, our needs, and gives it form. It is sadness and loss and danger. It is uncertainty.

It is good.

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