Daniells, The King's Bastard (2010)

Rowena Cory Daniells, King Rolen's Kin: The King's Bastard. Solaris Books, 2010. Pp. 640. ISBN 9781907519017. $7.99.

Reviewed by Sam Kelly

The King's Bastard is most definitely a book that wears its subgenres proudly. The title, cover, map, and blurb all let us know we're in for kings-and-princes stories in a recently founded fantasy kingdom, with inventively spelt mythological monsters (foenix, unistag—which, sadly, has a traditional unicorn horn rather than a single stag's horn like a tree—and leogryf, for instance), fractious barons, and a neighbouring country with which it may or may not go to war. On the other hand, it is an interesting subversion of the traditional high-fantasy tropes; neither kingdom qualifies unambiguously as good guys or bad guys, which is a pleasant relief. The cover radiates “dark fantasy”, with a brooding, wild-haired gentleman carrying either four dangerous-looking weapons or a set of extremely gothic bagpipes. (The dim mood lighting makes it rather difficult to tell which.)

The presence of all those monsters is quite neatly explained within the text, and tied in neatly to the kingdom's social structure, but Cory Daniells has (thankfully) resisted the temptation to explain away everything here. There are two more books to come, but we knew that from the front cover, so it's no surprise that this one ends with the beginning of a new plotline; the old reaches some resolution, though, and the next two books are due out in the next two months in any case.

There is one element that is both new and praiseworthy here, and that is the treatment of bisexuality. Male-male love is both socially and politically taboo in the kingdom, so a young man's impulsive confession (and the characters here are realistic young people, with all the plot-driving impulsiveness and passion that implies, without the annoying childishness it can often default to) lands our protagonists in rather a lot of plot, and affects their relationships with each other in subtly sketched ways rather than taking the obvious paths of condemnation or immediate acceptance.

If there is one thing I dislike about The King's Bastard, it is the unsubtlety of our major villain; I have seen this same conspiracy before, and if I'm marking time waiting for the protagonists to catch up with me as a reader then I expect a payoff at the end, with a new and unexpected twist on the plan when it's done. I did not get that here, which was disappointing. The quality of the prose is unremarkable; there is rather more internal monologuing and infodumping than I like, but it is still engaging, and the only reason that it didn't keep me up all night was that I had finished it by bedtime.

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Di Filippo, Roadside Bodhisattva (2010)

Paul Di Filippo, Roadside Bodhisattva. PS Publishing, 2010. Pp. 174. ISBN 978-1906301941. £20.00 / $32.00.

Reviewed by Christopher Michaels

Roadside Bodhisattva is a good example of the way a teen central character and narrator does not necessarily mean its readership will be limited to young adults. There is none of the literary revolution suggested by the author’s dedication to Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski or the central character’s continual references to Jack Kerouac. The only similarity is in that this is a first person story about being on the road (well mostly beside it). It is told by a sixteen year old about life at a roadside diner and motel. It is one of those “spiritual apprenticeship” stories, but without the magic of Harry Potter, Twilight, The Teachings of Don Juan or The Peaceful Warrior, though possibly with more quiet wisdom. The author is suggesting that Buddha is found in everyday life through ordinary relationships between ordinary people—as contrasted with the young central character’s desire for something extraordinary.

Kid A is a sixteen year old runaway anonymously seeking a life of adventure on the road guided by, even better living through, Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums and The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. He meets Sid, a man whose long experience on the road, knowledge and generous attitudes reflect a practical understanding of the real Buddhism the boy is looking for. He contrasts with his parents’ Buddhism which sees them with “their heads so far into some kind of jackass mysticism that they tended to let a lot of ‘unimportant’ things like grocery shopping and mortgage payments and laundry slide.” Kerouac had proved for him there were other types of Buddhists.

Sid on the other hand lives by simple rules like, “I start out friendly, and see how the other guy responds. After that, based on what he does, I follow tit for tat.” His attitude to the boy’s guides is clear cut but mixed: “Your Kerouac is a shot of super-antibiotic to cure you of mental clap. But the other one is like a stolen blank prescription pad. You can write yourself all the prescriptions you want from it, but there’s no authority behind ‘em, and you’ll never get ‘em filled.” Kid A quotes directly from Gibran from memory whilst he associates himself and Sid with the main characters and events in Dharma Bums.

The two stop at a roadside diner and motel for breakfast when Sid talks the owner Ann into giving them both jobs. We meet a group of ordinary people in ordinary pain. Sue, a girl about seventeen, about a year older then Kid A, who’s been in trouble and sent to live with her aunt by parents who don’t know how to handle her; Sonny the stuttering cook; Angelo the grumpy mechanic; and Yasmine the sexy but bitchy waitress. Through the story we find out each of their stories as Sid intervenes to change their lives for the better, apparently out of generosity. Meanwhile our main character stumbles along, accidentally helping out each person while he tries to get it on with Sue. Kid A finally becomes impatient to get on the road and continue his search for the adventures that will let him live his Kerouac fantasy life, leading to a somewhat surprising climax.

Roadside Bodhisattva has a simple direct narrative style of storytelling; it is an easy read, probably comfortable for a sixteen year-old readership, as suggested by the narrative voice. But we don’t really see even the darkness that plagues Harry Potter, which has driven the Kid to run away and to base his life on a literary fantasy. It doesn’t even stretch the reader’s vocabulary as much as the Potter books. It is a pseudo-Buddhist fable set in small-town America. It is a little slow in places and the plot is convenient in others, but as you’d expect from a fable it points to depth whilst focussing on daily life, apparent simplicity and surface appearances.

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Hughes, Mister Gum (2009)

Rhys Hughes, Mister Gum. DogHorn, 2009. Pp. 108. ISBN 0955063191. £7.99.

Reviewed by N.A. Jackson

Mister Gum is silly. The more you read, the sillier it gets. Eventually it becomes so absurd that it threatens to become psychologically disturbing.

The book defies the usual critical methodology: do the characters and plot stand up to scrutiny? What are the themes and conceits of the work? How good is the writing? A serious approach doesn't work. It has no conceptual depths; it's basically an exploration of man's all-consuming obsession: his ejaculate. The characters are vehicles for humorous situations. The themes: tits, bums, cocks and come. The writing: awful puns, desperate metaphors, excruciating alliteration and puerile wordplay. One of the great achievements of the book is the sheer number and variety of synonyms Hughes manages to find for “sperm” or any other word associated with the act of regeneration. It made me laugh—often, and groan and retch (there's a particularly horrific scene involving a sombrero and a bank manager's anus).

Beckett, The Holy Machine (2010)

Chris Beckett, The Holy Machine. Corvus, 2010. Pp. 288. ISBN 9781848876569. £10.99.

Reviewed by Christopher Michaels

This book has many of the elements of classic science fiction. At first impression, it is full of clichés, but its takes these ingredients in interesting directions that make reading on worthwhile. Like the best classic sci-fi, The Holy Machine has captivating writing that draws in the reader’s imagination. It explores a future that is an extension of current social movements. It has conflict between robots and workers, and looks at the social consequences of technology. It has questions about sentience and personhood for robots that go back to Asimov in the 1940s and ‘50s. Of course there are robots designed for pleasure, one of the morally problematic economic functions that many hope they could help solve. You have philosophical and political ideas being explored to their logical extreme, and as with the best of classic sci-fi you have all of these being explored through an emotional personal story as you journey with a few people struggling to cope with this world.

The world we are visiting has been engulfed by “The Reaction,” a movement across religions which has meant they each now rule their home territories. In this irrational darkness the one beacon of light is the Mediterranean island-state of Illyria off the coast of the Balkans. This city-state has the sense of Western philosophy’s mythic place for ancient Athens surrounded by barbarism. Illyria is populated by rationalist refugees from the rise of radical fundamentalist religion. Atheist scientism (my coinage) is the state religion.

The older generations have horrifying memories of persecution by the religions of their mother cultures as they took power. So if you are southern European you were persecuted by the Catholics and the Orthodox. If from the USA, as our hero’s mother is, then it was by the protestants. If you were Indian or Japanese then it was the Hindu and the Shinto radicals that gained political power and persecuted intellectuals and scientists.

Illyria is a hi-tech world with virtual reality for escape and robots being developed and produced to free the inhabitants of dependence on uneducated religious, and therefore dangerous, guest workers from neighbouring countries. They outmatch any society in the world for war machines. The post-traumatic stress of the older refugees has meant they are fundamentalist militant atheists and rationalists, introducing laws intolerant of anything that cannot be scientifically proven. The younger generations though are realising the shortcomings of pure scientific materialism and can see the similarity between the intolerance of their politicians and those of the theocracies surrounding them.

Enter George Simling, hero or maybe better anti-hero, the primary first person narrator of this story. We do have snap moments offered of the first person experience of some other characters, in particular his robot lover, and his mother. He is a nerd in a society of nerds, deeply isolated and dissociated from the culture of “the City”, as it is called. He gets involved with some of the milder rebels and moves towards the more radical militants of the younger generation. But his passionate love for one of the newest versions of pleasure robot deflects him from participating in violent political action.

We get to see some aspects of the internal life of the “Syntec” pleasure robot, Lucy, as she comes to sentience, to a sense of a self/identity beyond her programming. This was some of the best writing. George gradually notices her growing sentience; he decides to take liberate her when the self-evolving programming of other robots leads to unpredictable behaviour. Some just walk off, but when a police robot becomes a mass killer a law is passed that all robots will be rebooted and set back to their default programming every six months thus wiping their memory and their evolutionary progress towards sentience.

The latter part of the story then turns into the after-story of one of the endings of Blade Runner, when Harrison Ford runs off with the beautiful robot, but without the four year life span. In the medieval religious world of the City’s neighbours the robots are demons they proudly destroy as proof of their religious fervour.

Again like good classic sci-fi this story is a metaphor exploring deep philosophical questions relevant to modern life. In this case the central problem is how do you find spiritual depth as an atheist. As George journeys through the Outlands, first with his disguised robot then by himself, he explores the different religions he meets, trying to find satisfaction for his scientifically trained, inquiring mind.

The Holy Machine edges almost too close to cliché in places but it is saved by the writing, and by the emotional intensity of the protagonist’s journey through the world of medieval religion versus so-called atheist enlightenment. Occasional readers of sci-fi will definitely enjoy it; more accomplished readers of science fiction will either not get past the beginning with a sighed, “here we go again” or will enjoy the twists it takes in setting a lot of standard science-fictional ingredients in a relatively unique world to explore important and interesting philosophical and human questions at the core of atheism and religion.

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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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