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The Croning by Laird Barron
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The Croning by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books, 2012) starts off with a gem in its own right. Although it’s only the first chapter, it could be a free-standing short story retelling the Rumpelstiltskin myth with such verve and inventiveness, you want it to continue. Except you’re then abruptly moved forward in time to 1958 when Donald Miller and his wife Michelle, née Mock, go on a trip to Mexico City courtesy of Louis Plimpton, one of his wife’s colleagues. When his wife goes missing, Don tries to find her and is almost killed in weird circumstances he finds very difficult to recall. In 1980 agents, certainly government and possibly FBI or an early version of the NSA, are present at the death of a Person of Interest at Wenatchee, one Louis Plimptom. We then jump up-to-date with Don and Michelle into their retirement years although she stays more active, going off on trips every now and then. They live quietly in the Waddell Valley, possibly close to the The Sanguine Stone. So, the book hits the ground running and then slows to a walking pace before taking off again.
Now here’s the thing about families. Most of this happy couple’s relatives are either missing in action or sufficiently weird there’s no regular contact with them. Don has spent a lifetime as a geologist, both commercial and academic, and, not surprisingly, was an active spelunker when young. Michelle acted the part of a mainstream scientist, but was actually obsessed with the idea there are little people who live underground — as I recall, the fairy story reports Rumpelstiltskin was of small stature. Now, apart from trips with friends, Michelle largely restricts herself to the investigation of her family tree. The early Mocks, particularly the women, seem to fascinate her. Strangely, their son is prone to sleepwalking and has been found in odd places around the house and outhouses. He may also have memory lapses, and had a strange supernatural experience during a séance when a teen. But that’s new history.
Laird Barron, the young sea dog
Going back to our happy couple, the common denominator who brought them together in the 1950s was Professor Plimpton. He worked at the university they attended. When they eloped to marry, he let them use his farmhouse in Wenatchee. Indeed, he was the main driving force behind much of Michelle’s early work. That’s why they were saddened by the news of his death in 1980 and attended his funeral. Later that day, they went on to the Wolverton Mansion, perched high on a cliff overlooking a forest, for the wake. But Don’s memory of that evening and what he heard about the relationship between his grandfather, father and an unrelated young man vaguely connected to the Mock family somehow slipped his mind. Indeed, a lot of things have disappeared from his mind and only some of them have later returned.
This marks the nature of the narrative. As with all good unreliable narrators, the ageing Don is increasingly aware of just how much he might have forgotten. Obviously, by virtue of the memory losses, he doesn’t know how significant these gaps may be. But there are times when odd snippets surface. Indeed, in itself, the re-emergence of memories is strange. If his brain forgets certain events so completely, why should there be moments when he remembers odd events? Perhaps it’s all part of some cosmic plan. Yet what possible role could a mere mortal like Don play if other worldly forces are involved? Such is the underlying mystery as we slowly begin to see how the pieces in the jigsaw fit together. In this, Laird Barron is building on “Mysterium Tremendum” in which four men find a copy of The Black Guide. This small travel guide suggests there’s a dolmen somewhere in the foothills of Mystery Mountain out on the Olympic Peninsula. Their trip into the forest to find it proves challenging. So, Don’s life may somehow be set on a trajectory that will also bring him to Mystery Mountain. Planning such a life journey would require an ability to transcend time and exercise considerable influence over human affairs.
To get a better understanding of this scenario, think about the fiction of Arthur Machen who warns against lifting the veil to reveal forbidden mysteries. He, more than any other author of his time, was fascinated by the relationship between specific places and the mind, suggesting that sensitive people might connect with otherness by being the lonely figure on a landscape or, in our case, a cave system. In this, he was expanding on the idea of genius loci, the religious concept from Ancient Rome, in which numinous spirits interact with the mind. H. P. Lovecraft recognised his debt to Arthur Machen in developing the Cthulhu Mythos and, others following in Lovecraft’s footsteps have built on the supposed power of a place to produce a link between a human mind and different orders of being.
Laird Barron is one of the best of the writers currently exploring how this traditional cosmic environment can be developed to make the fiction more appealing to our modern sensibilities. He’s Lovecraftian in the general sense of the word, but he increasingly blends old-fashioned weird with Mythos tropes in modern settings to produce a different perspective from which to view old gods and monsters. The Croning, his first novel, sees him invest significant effort in Don, a character with whom we can readily empathise as he tries to reconstruct his memories and so find peace of mind. Then we have the detail of the family backgrounds and the careful structuring of the story to move us around in time. Once we have all the relevant information in our hands, it’s mounting dread as we accelerate towards the final revelations. Anyone even vaguely interested in cosmic horror with Lovecraftian overtones should read this. It’s beautifully paced and wonderfully innovative.
For a review of the collection containing “Mysterium Tremendum” see Occultation. His third collection is called The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. There’s also a short novel called The Light is the Darkness.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
I’ve also interviewed him here.
The Black Opera by Mary Gentle
One of the most interesting features of information available to us is how quickly it enters the left ear and leaves by the right with almost nothing to show it ever spent time in-between. Yet, every now and again, one phrase or, in some extraordinary cases, an entire sentence will magically lodge itself in long-term memory. It’s as if we always knew this new thing yet never recognised it before. For example, in V for Vendetta, we discover that, “Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.” We always knew you can’t kill an idea with bullets, but this scene somehow personalises it. We also know the same thing can happen to faith. The major religions of the world and their antithesis atheism seem to have weathered various attempts to eradicate them. Sometimes, the harder you push against a belief system, the harder it pushes back.
One of the times when the battle between faith and its enemies was drawn in more epic terms was during the Enlightenment. Not only were rationalism in general and science in particular threatening to displace ideas thought divinely defined, but religion itself was experiencing the Protestant reaction against the Catholic Church started by Martin Luther. This produced a period of intense conflict both physical and political as the emerging secular governments began to assert their right to rule without interference from the pulpits. At this point, let’s consider one simple proposition. In the opera houses throughout Italy, the emotion of life was expressed in newly permitted romanticism. Through the music, audiences could soar to new heights of passion and understanding. In the churches, sung masses were also developing into major musical events where massed voices were raised in celebration of the divine. When both secular and religious music was performed, there was always the possibility of “faith healing”. People in churches might be able to throw away crutches and walk again. People might leave an opera house with a depression lifted. In modern medicine, we talk learnedly of the placebo effect. In those times, such occurrences were considered miraculous or in need of scientific exploration to determine the cause.
Mary Gentle washed out after wrestling with some weighty ideas
So, in The Black Opera by Mary Gentle (Night Shade Books, 2012) let’s assume an alternate world, not unlike our own, in which a third party group emerges to represent the interests of the Prince of Darkness. Now we come to the problem of coincidence. Suppose this group believes in the power of music to change the world in the literal sense. They try an experiment and, while singing a Black Opera to their version of Krakatoa, it explodes and shrouds the world in volcanic ash. Not worrying whether there’s actual cause and effect, this group now plans a second performance. This time, they will sing to Mount Etna or Stromboli or both. Should the local Kings get wind of this plan, they would obviously commission a countervailing opera. We’re in Sicily and the King must find someone he can trust to produce it. At first, he gets the best in Italy to come to Sicily, but all their efforts are frustrated by illnesses and accidents — i.e. subtle sabotage. The project is abandoned as cursed. So he turns to an atheist librettist to pull something out of the fire. I forgot to mention this poet has only six weeks to bring the finished performance to the stage. Fortunately his cross-dressing sister thinks she’s a composer and a top-class violinist so she can also conduct. Now let’s be clear. There’s no need for anyone to believe Mount Etna will actually erupt, but it’s the idea that it might. . . Once it enters the heads of the King and his confidants, it’s not something that can be ignored. The idea has become bulletproof.
Anyway, our librettist is short of inspiration so, naturally, he resists the temptation to bounce ideas off the ghost of his father. He’s sworn an oath of secrecy and can’t trust his father not to talk out of turn. Perhaps someone ought to exorcise the father. Then the King selects a noble-born Count to write the music. He’s a poser who thinks he’s a composer with the librettist’s ex-lover as his wife, except she’s dead — this first zombie is only included because she’s a Countess and blessed with the most beautiful voice opera has ever heard. That’s always going to be a social challenge to add to the shortness of time to get words and music together. Then there’s the problem of the librettist’s dead father’s debts. Surprising, really, how quickly these distractions are piling up. Then the rehearsal theatre burns down. As you will gather, this is a fantasy with a sense of humour. Perhaps all this should become the libretto. It has all the drama. Surely no-one would miss hearing about an Aztec Princess anyway?
While he’s waiting for the music to catch up to his words, our librettist is sent off on a secret mission. The Satanic Cult is planning to destabilise the King of Sicily and something has to be done. After a successful outcome, it’s into the catacombs to continue the rehearsals while rumblings in Etna suggest the Black Opera is also in rehearsal. And then comes a revelation that changes everything! And here’s something to chew on while you read the book. If there was an eruption, there would be a lot of dead people. . .
I can’t remember reading a fantasy with such sensibilities before. It’s a magnificent blend of our history and a radically different alternate history in which religion and rationalism clash in a completely unexpected way. I was entranced by the possibility of our atheist librettist being able to debate theology with the dead. Anyway, putting this speculation to one side, I’m reminded of Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche. In both our history and this fantasy world, humanity might give meaning to life through a belief in a God. Indeed, the absence of such a belief would be likely to produce a dangerously unstable nihilism. So if an Übermensch was to emerge, it would create a new set of values affirming the value of continued existence without having to rely on Platonic idealism. In such a case, the Übermensch would not be an individual. It would probably take the form of a Volksgeist, a spirit collectively representing the human race, or at least a substantial part of it.
At this point, I apologise to my readers. I’ve allowed myself to be distracted by philosophical issues that are not directly relevant to The Black Opera. Mary Gentle is playing with some heavyweight themes, but you don’t need to be interested in such background issues to enjoy this book. So here comes the headline. I was entranced, but I acknowledge that I’m a sucker for big idea books. It’s a wonderful story capturing the detail of how to write and stage an opera in six weeks, hoping it will somehow prevent a volcanic eruption. If that’s all you want, you will enjoy this book. If you want more, you only have to look beneath the surface of what happens when the curtain finally goes up.
And will you just look at the fabulous cover artwork from Sam Burley! Everyone who likes spectacular art should take a moment to look at his site.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Enormity by W G Marshall
For once, I’m going to start off with a headline. Enormity by W G Marshall (a pseudonym of Walter Greatshell) (Night Shade Books, 2012) is wonderful! No matter what your prejudices against science fiction or fantasy, you can’t beat a book that takes a theme and then explores all the implications with a detailed eye. That this happens to start off with a 1950’s film trope is just one of those accidents of nature no-one can predict nor control once they occur. Think of this as a tsunami of weird with a wave height that just seems to get bigger as the book goes on. For this book, I think we probably need a new label. Thanks to China Miéville we got New Weird. Perhaps this should start off überweird. Actually, I’m cheating a bit on the weird front. The problem is the alternatives that immediately spring to mind like wacky and goofy lack the necessary gravitas. If you’re going to spawn a new subgenre label, you want it to sound impressive. Somehow a genre named after a Disney character (ignoring the copyright issues for now) fails to inspire. Screwball seems to have been appropriated by the film industry. Absurdism is too academic. This is definitely not whimsical. All suggestions will be gratefully received.
To prove how old I am, I confirm actually paying to go and see The Amazing Colossal Man, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and, at the other end of the scale, The Incredible Shrinking Man when they first came out. For those of us used to seeing giantism in insects and animals as a result of exposure to atomic radiation, it came as a welcome relief to have it affect humans as well. The shrinking was the most effective with the spookily metaphysical ending as our hero grew so small, he slipped between the atoms and disappeared into a kind of negative infinity. So with Enormity we’re jazzing up old themes with new variations. Move over Jonathan Swift, this book has Earth suddenly confronted by two giants. Now you should understand, these are not your common or garden 50 foot efforts or even Brobdingnagian. The man stands at 6,600 feet, give or take a few inches. The woman is only slightly shorter. Fortunately, their clothing expanded to match their physical size. None of the Hulk’s green body showing through his artfully torn clothing. This is a quantum supersizing to make even a McDonald’s look small. How come, you ask.
An artfully small photo of W G Marshall
Well, it’s all down to one of those archetypal mad scientists. This genius decides the best way of bringing forward the end of days is to give North Korea a super weapon. So he carefully wraps his quantum dark matter in some packaging held together with some string theory tied into a artistic bow, the whole left to marinate in a jar of kimchi as the fermentation process works its wonders. Unfortunately, the North Koreans smell a rat. They think this is a subtle American plot to make them look stupid. The man is too obviously insane to be credible, so they send him down to the beach for assassination by one of their top agents. Realising what’s about to happen to him, our nutcase triggers one of the weapons which rather neatly proves who is the least sane in all this adventure.
The result is the creation of our two giants: one poor American sap who happens to be on the beach with his wife, and our female assassin. Fortunately for America, Major Harley Queen is on hand to begin the process of trying to deal with this unusual situation. Surprisingly, this was left out of the gaming scenarios when he went through training at West Point so, when it all comes down to one man and his initiative, he just has to catch the ear of someone higher up and, suddenly, he’s standing on the shoulders of a giant, trying to make himself heard. If only he had a woman to hand, he could join the one-mile-high club in a novel way.
All this is a wonderful exercise in proving how disgusting the human body is when viewed from the perspective of an ant. Believe it or not, we are home to an array of different forms of life from bacteria upwards. If the body grows big then so do all the lifeforms we host, a distinctly disconcerting thought for any human who comes within range. Now scale up urination and other bodily functions. This gives a whole new meaning to “gross”. And all the while, these giants can cause massive devastation. Whether it’s wading through the sea close to shore or trampling through a city, there’s only one thing that might be in humanity’s favour. Sooner or later, these giants will run out of food and starve to death.
The full-size image from Cody Tilson is wonderful too!
At one level, this is an entirely serious science fiction novel about what could happen if someone was to develop and detonate a quantum weapon. It’s also “enormous” fun as W G Marshall explores the enormity of the problems caused by the giants and, more importantly, what military response might be possible. As a point of comparison, weapons have little effect on Godzilla and he’s only the size of a small office block. Now scale that up to a being more than a mile in height. However you want to view this book, it should win a prize. Not that a Hugo or Nebula would be on the cards. Enormity is too far off the radar for any conventional award. But the quality of inventiveness should be recognised and given some kind of prize. This is a book you should go out of your way to read. It will reward you in so many unexpected ways, you will be thinking about it for days after finishing.
Have a look at the work of Cody Tilson.
For a review of a book under the name Walter Greatshell, see Terminal Island.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long
Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long (Night Shade Books, 2012) is written by a man who has some passing familiarity with the Barsoom novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Except, of course, this is a coherent novel whereas ERB either wrote the originals as a serial or separate tales that were later put together and sold as novels. The result is often a less than coherent plot. The initial hero, John Carter, wanders from place to place having to fight off various attacks from weird creatures and evil warlords. He’s the archetypal hero being both brave and blessed with the wisdom of Earth. This enables him to win the hearts of the local women and rise to a position of leadership on Barsoom. Those foreigners could recognise a man of talent and put him to work. In terms of style, these books are easy to parody. The first was written one-hundred years ago and reflects the attitudes of the day, i.e. the innate superiority of the white man no matter where he finds himself. In the case of Barsoom, Carter has a natural physical advantage because of the lighter gravity. He’s therefore stronger than the local coloured folk, a trait that is, to some extent, passed on to his children. The later arrival, Ulysses Paxton, is better endowed in the brain department, although his military experience does come in useful.
Anyway, Nathan Long has a rich vein of material to mine for inspiration but, for the modern audience, there’s a problem. The ERB originals are deeply racist with each colour grouping having different physical, intellectual and cultural characteristics. For example, the Black and Yellow Martians are active slavers, raiding for new recruits and selling them on. In simplistic terms, this makes them evil and cruel whereas the dominant Red Martians are people of honour who fight for truth, justice and the Barsoom way. The issue of slavery was an ironic problem for John Carter to confront given his background as a soldier fighting for the Confederates in the American Civil War. Fortunately, he’d been converted to the Yankee way of thinking and was red hot in the cause of freedom. This did not, of course, change his sexist views. It might have been acceptable to free the slaves but women would always have to know their place.
Nathan Long as Normal Bean
So Nathan Long makes the strategic decision to substitute Jane Carver, a six-foot biker chick, for John Carter. Even in Earth terms, she’s strong and, with her training as an Airborne Ranger, she’s more than able to defend herself against attack. Once she arrives on Waar and acquires the advantage of gravity, not only does she look good without the assistance of a bra, she’s also able to beat the ordinary warrior. Once she gets some training in the use of swords (a serious omission from her Ranger training), she can match the top exponents. In her travels, she meets two races. One we can describe as comparable to tigers with a tail that enables them to rear up and perform tasks using three arms. They are tribal, living the lives of hunter-gatherers, but with a reasonably well-developed society and minor skills in shamanic magic. In cultural terms, Jane Carver has come to this New World so they are the Red Indians out on the prairies. Living more civilised lives in cities, we have the purple “humans”. Naturally, they take one look at Jane’s fair skin and declare her a demon, i.e. doubly damned when you add in the disadvantage of being a woman.
There’s also a fascinating LGBT subtext. As a less civilised world, there’s something of a fixation with sex. Fortunately, this is not interracial but, among the purple ones, more or less anything goes. Poor Sai-Far is treated as a doll to be dressed in gender-inappropriate clothing and given make-up by one of the tiger girls. As a slave he’s bought and abused by an old man. Fortunately, the pirate who captures him is female and in the mood for conventional sex. That’s a relief for him. The love of his life is Wen-Jhai, a somewhat anal young lady, who becomes completely liberated after Jane gives her lessons in a woman’s right to enjoy sex. We have straight sex, gay sex and a threesome. Then there’s Lhan who swings both ways. And Jane who gets no action, what with her being a demon and strong enough to rip the arm (or any other member) off any man attempting unauthorised access. Her only hope is one of the women will take pity on her. We should also mention the concept of open marriage among the nobility. If the men see any lower status women, they can honour them in the usual way without this disturbing the love between equals, i.e. the noble women are expected to accept this lack of fidelity.
Put all this together and Jane Carver of Waar takes itself seriously, showing our heroine as a fish out of water and trying to avoid death at every turn. This is not a parody intent on mocking ERB-style Barsoom fantasy novels. Unlike the originals, this has a coherent plot and good character development. It’s also quite amusing — ERB tends to be humourless — as Jane meets pirates, gets sold into slavery, fights as a gladiator in the arena and is a one-woman swat team in putting down an armed rebellion against the local King. This puts it in the same bracket as a homage to the memory of John Carter (ironically about to be revived yet again, this time as a Hollywood blockbuster). I found it very enjoyable and would recommend it to anyone who has read the pulpy “covers” written by L Sprague De Camp, Fletcher Pratt, Christopher Stasheff, John Norman, Michael Moorcock, et al. This is so much better now we have a modern master of fantasy working on the recreation of a Barsoom world.
For a review of the sequel, see Swords of Waar.
As an aside, the artwork from Dave Dorman is also available in true Amazon style.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
The Twilight of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor
When I was at school, the atmosphere was mostly serious. Various talking heads would appear in front of us, doing their best to interest us in basic information. Educationally, they believed we first needed order and structure. Later, we could build on this for a more sophisticated level of performance. We ground through the grammar of both English and foreign languages so that, when we acquired vocabulary, we could speak and write with formal exactness. All continued serenely until, after we’d polished off O-Levels, our English teacher decided we should explore the range of literary forms. Suddenly, we were expected to parody and lampoon anything and everything supposedly serious. Looking back, this was building on our devout worship of the surrealism of the Goon Show and other potentially satirical radio programmes of the period. If you want an academic justification, I suppose he must have encountered Heidegger’s ideas as incorporated into French existentialism because he gave us an early introduction to the process, courtesy of Derrida, we might now consider deconstruction or, if you prefer, reconstruction. We had to focus on the text, capture its meaning and then make fun of it.
This caught me at an impressionable age and I’ve never really lost a somewhat subversive view of the world. In terms of my reading, I also enjoyed the parodies of the classics of my chosen genres, devouring Bored of the Rings by Henry N Beard and Douglas C Kenney as soon as it came out. Similarly, I grabbed National Lampoon’s Doon by Ellis Weiner. Such books are of their time and I seriously doubt anyone would find them even remotely amusing today. I’m also conscious that neither book would make much sense unless you were really familiar with the originals.
All of which brings me to the modern fashion for mash-ups which has produced such classics as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Seth Grahame-Smith), Little Women and Werewolves (Porter Grand), etc. Personally, I’m not impressed because although there’s some originality at a conceptual level, the execution is neither a good version of the original styles and manners, nor a competent supernatural novel. Such humour as exists comes from the forced nature of the situations, e.g. that Queen Victoria might hitch up her skirts and secretly hunt demons or Abraham Lincoln despatch vampires — easier because of the lack of skirts. But, after a few pages, even the best of jokes palls and leaves us with pages of desperate writing.
For many moons, Garrison Keillor has been broadcasting and writing about Lake Wobegon, a fictional town in Minnesota based, in part, on his hometown of Anoka. Similarly, Stephenie Meyer has been writing about the romantic possibilities if you put a vampire and a predatory young lady in the same room, and wait to see who’s chased and whether two become one (the Spice Girls have a lot of explaining to do). So here comes The Twilight of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor (Night Shade Books, 2011) (which looks like a pseudonym for someone famous but one can never be sure about these things). Should you be afraid, very afraid?
Well, surprisingly, this is a very good stand-alone novel. Suppose you’d spent the last thirty years never engaging in cultural activities like reading fiction, listening to the radio, watching television or going to the cinema (which probably means you’re Amish). You could still read this book with perfect enjoyment for, although it borrows heavily from the ideas bank underlying the originals, it doesn’t depend on them for their effect.
So here comes Bonnie Grayduck. Forced to leave California to escape investigation into some of her extracurricular activities, she finds herself in a small town in Minnesota. This is both a curse because life appears so unsophisticated, and an opportunity because she believes she can easily dominate the scene and do more of what she enjoys. As is always the case in such stories, she must enroll in the local High School where, in the midst of all the dross, there’s this stand-out hunk who catches her eye. Now begins a strange courtship, the young man resisting her feminine wiles. Rising to the challenge, she plots his downfall only to discover she’s in pursuit of a vampire — and, ignoring the television show, she keeps a diary detailing her experiences. It should be said, however, this is rather better than the CW Network’s teen drama (not difficult) and, in my opinion, even better than the Twilight young adult books of Stephenie Meyer (even less difficult). This novel is written with very adult sensibilities engaged (no porn, of course) and a gentle sense of humour aimed at mocking the standard tropes in vampire, were-thing and Criminal Minds-type dramas. And it’s all set in Lake Wo(e)bego(tte)n so we get news of life and death out on the prairies.
I’m a natural curmudgeon so never do laughter unless I’m confident I can be unobserved — reputation is everything in my household. Fortunately, The Twilight of Lake Woebegotten is not something that threatened unrestrained mirth, but it did make me smile every now and again. By my standards, this is high praise. So allow me to recommend this rather clever book by Harrison Geillor. If you have had Amish tendencies for the last thirty years, you can still enjoy this on its merits, but a little background on Lake Wobegon and both Twilight and New Moon will enhance your understanding. It’s not something Heidegger would have enjoyed (unless in translation), but my English teacher would have approved.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Dancing With Bears by Michael Swanwick
There’s a well-entrenched tendency to think genre fiction should always take itself seriously. Traditionally, this means spaceships navigate the cosmos, while mages wave their magic wands, and horror stuff happens to innocent victims (often pulchritudinous in the early pulps). There’s rarely time to crack a smile as worlds have to be saved from who-knows-what threats, while fates worse-than-death dance attendance on those well-endowed girls. Except, occasionally, humour did rear its head as in the work of Henry Kuttner and William Tenn. In a world infected by fear of nuclear destruction during the Cold War, we used to look forward to anything that would break the mould and give us a chance to laugh.
Today, the vast majority of authors churn out millions of words that range from the humourless to extreme grim. The assumption is that modern sensibilities prefer their entertainment to come wrapped in danger with the risk factors high. Just as people queue up to ride the latest white-knuckle extravaganza in an adventure theme park, so we want our fiction full of tension in full page-turning suspense mode. Well, every now and again, I like to sit back and enjoy a book that makes me smile. As a true carnivore, I can and do eat semi-raw steak as a main course, but the delights of bonnes bouches, those tasty little morsels you can pop in your mouth to produce one of those taste explosions. . . They really bring a smile of appreciation to the lips. It’s the skill of the chef to produce something so unexpectedly exquisite. It’s a rare delight (pun intended given the earlier reference to steak) to be savoured.
Michael Swanwick, hairy without being unduly ursine (dancing ability unknown)
All of which brings us to Dancing With Bears (Night Shade Books, 2011) by Michael Swanwick. This is the first novel featuring Darger and Surplus. Previously, their appearances have been confined to shorter lengths in “The Dog Said Bow-Wow”, “The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport”, and “Girls and Boys Come Out to Play”. The second little cat in Paris is the lightest of the conflations, while the first adventure in London is slightly more substantial. The third is the least satisfying. Our series characters are conmen who wish to amass wealth with the least possible effort. To this end, they dangle temptation in the way of the rich and, through both direction and misdirection, encourage the movement of wealth in their direction. Except, they are beset by misfortune and, despite their best efforts, often escape with little more than their lives. Such is always the way when our heroes must continue to their next adventure in no better state than as they started.
In this case, they’ve managed to attach themselves to a caravan taking virgins, specially trained in the theoretical side of perfect love-making, as a gift from Byzantium to the Duke of Muscovy, the current ruler of Russia. This would be the ideal berth except the women have been programmed to die if touched by any man other than the Duke. That’s a fairly good deterrent to any physical contact in its own right, but it’s reinforced by the presence of some gene-modified guards. They’re not very bright but, as Neanderthals, they can rip any inconvenient man to pieces without breaking sweat. These Pearls include Zeosophia who’s also trained as a spy. It will be her job to bend as many Russians to the Byzantium cause as possible. On the way, the caravan picks up a slightly less than innocent young man and a strannik, a religious pilgrim with a hidden agenda.
Upon their arrival in Moscow, Surplus poses as the Ambassador and Darger goes underground, eventually finding a nice warm place to curl up and read. The Duke proves something of an anomaly and all the key decision-making seems to be done through Chortenko, a sociopath who rules through the usual mixture of blackmail and intimidation. Naturally, he sends one of his minions to find Darger. This is Pepsicolova, a dedicated informant until her supply of enhanced cigarettes is threatened. Thereafter, she’s a dangerously homicidal free agent who, together with a man in charge of a loose cannon, manages to save most of Moscow from burning to the ground.
This is a story of a new revolution in a future Moscow where the world is struggling to recover from an assortment of plagues and outbreaks of violence from intelligent machines. As you might suspect, this makes the basic situation inherently chaotic and we are left to watch as the flapping of butterfly wings in Baikonur brings a perfect storm to the streets and underworld of Moscow. Think of it as fantasy meets science fiction in a post-apocalyse setting. In a way, Surplus and Darger are irrelevant. They come with a grand scheme to con the Duke, but find themselves caught up in events too momentous to be controlled. Their only hopes, as everything spirals out of control, are to stay alive long enough to find something valuable and portable to carry away with them from the wreckage.
Although this is a novel built up from multiple set-pieces, it’s really only an amuse-bouche: a refined sampler to show off the chef’s skills. There are some genuinely delightful moments, everything being held together by a mixture of sheer writing bravado and a sequence of sometimes bizarre coincidences to drive the plot forward. This is for anyone who wants a change of pace from the more usual stolid plots and pedestrian writing. Dancing With Bears sings of wit and joyful exuberance — bears are included but their involvement in fights is optional. I enjoyed every minute!
For the record, this book has been nominated as one of the 2012 John W Campbell Memorial Award Finalists.
Eclipse Four edited by Jonathan Strahan
I suppose the question for discussion is what we should expect when we pick up an anthology. Of course, the answer is easy when there’s a theme clearly announced on the cover. Here be vampires, zombies and other divers monsters. Or the marketers can stick a genre label on the front and so reassure us a steady diet of primary colours like science fiction, fantasy, etc. or secondary shades of urban fantasy, noir, etc. Yet here we have an evolving series where the content seems somewhat unpredictable. In a sense, the only thing we can rely on is the name of the editor. Regardless of genre, do we trust his taste? Although the front cover proudly proclaims, Eclipse Four (Night Shade Books, 2011), edited by Jonathan Strahan, “New science fiction and fantasy”, Strahan says in his introduction, “. . .it is the strangest and most eldritch volume yet.” Apropos of nothing, he uses “eldritch” twice on the same page to describe the volumes in the Eclipse series. You can’t get more strange than that.
“Slow as a Bullet” by Andy Duncan is an engaging folksy fantasy based on the notion a work-shy good-fer-nothing could transfer his own laziness to a bullet. The result is a genuinely pleasing story about life in small-town America. “Tidal Forces” by Caitlin R Kiernan then follows up with a weird story in which an unknown supernatural force “wounds” one of a couple. Fortunately, the other partner is able to take matters in hand and this could resolve the problem favourably — only time will tell. “The Beancounter’s Cat” by Damien Broderick introduces us to the idea that, in a far future where space has been conquered, the only adventure worth having is going into the future as a family. “Story Kit” by Kij Johnson is a somewhat experimental piece in which we explore the nature of a story that happens to be about people in the situation of Dido and Aeneas. I’m not wholly convinced by it, but did find it interesting.
Jonathan Strahan demonstrating the Australian version of the Vulcan mind meld
“The Man in Grey” by Michael Swanwick is a simple, elegant story about the reality of life as we know it. While the idea itself is not entirely original, the execution is beautifully stage-managed with free will demonstrated in a slightly unexpected way. When you consider the extraordinary revelation our acting heroine experiences, her response is credible and understandable (to anyone other than a mere stagehand, that is). “Old Habits” by Nalo Hopkinson follows on, thematically, to present us with a different view of how life after death might end (forgive the apparent paradox). This is another example of a slightly tired trope of everyday ghosts elevated to a different level by the excellence of the writing. In this case, it’s a provocative idea that guilt might combine with a final appreciation of what has been lost, to provide new motivation. Continuing in this rich vein, “The Vicar of Mars” by Gwyneth Jones suggests there’s a thin line between what we imagine and what exists. Many years ago in the cinema, Morbius inadvertently resurrected the Monsters from the Id. In this future, aliens might be haunted by monsters from the void. Whether there’s any real threat depends on who might invoke them and who might confront them on the threshold. “Fields of Gold” by Rachel Swirsky has a spirit materialising at the party to welcome him to the afterlife. Once he has adjusted to the idea of his death, there’s some navel-gazing on everything he did to endear himself to others while alive. Fortunately, before he gets too depressed, he remembers how it felt to be eleven years old and this might just convert an alcohol-fueled afterlife into something approaching heaven. Swirsky produces a highly enjoyable romp that tramples on expectations, beautifully capturing the death of relationships and the guilt people feel when they’re being honest with themselves.
“Thought Experiment” by Eileen Gunn is a wonderful time travel story where each traveller needs a backstory and fills in the gaps of his or her own existence. These intrepid individuals prove that, if you travel enough, your own story moves from the back to the front burner. There’s a pleasingly wry sense of humour at work in this exploration of cause and effect, with the humour morphing into a slightly manic phase as we continue with “The Double of My Double Is Not My Double” by Jeffrey Ford. This takes the idea of doppelgängers and gives it group therapy. If nothing else, it confirms how inventive people can be when it comes to dipping things in chocolate. “Nine Oracles” by Emma Bull is elegant and to the point. Naturally, I predicted the outcome but don’t want to boast about it. “Dying Young” by Peter M Ball takes us to a distant post-war future where bodies and minds have been modified for the war effort but must now survive the peace. This is an impressive rumination on the effect of free will on predestination. What if two people with the ability to see into the future have to decide how it will all turn out.
“The Panda Coin” by Jo Walton takes that old detective cliché, “follow the money”, and gives it a pleasing twist through the structure of the narrative. The guided tour of the space facility is fascinating. Finally, “Tourists” by James Patrick Kelly tells us something about relationships. When you have no stake in a place, you come and go as a tourist. You see but are indifferent about what you see and what you will leave behind. Although we would like to limit tourism to its more literal meaning, there are people who never feel they belong in a time or place. For them, the only thing to do is move on when the time is right.
Going back to my introduction, I think Jonathan Strahan is wrong to apply “eldritch” to this particular anthology. It smacks too much of Lovecraft in this context and is wholly inappropriate to the editorial choices actually made. None of the story have visible or implied Cthulu tentacle prints. In the spirit of honesty, I admit Eclipse Four took me quite a long time to read. This is a compliment. These stories deserve to be savoured. This means I’m damning the book by labelling it potentially literary. This refers to the obvious intelligence and sensibility that pervades every story. Some of you might take this as distinguishing the work from the populist end of the market. So, yes, if you are a fan only interested in stories about spaceships and dragons, you may be disappointed (even though there are spaceships and a dragon — not in the same story, of course). Further, I note a trend in the so-called top-end reviewers to come up with clever phrases to hype the book. Such phrases then appear on websites or, better still on the jackets of the books themselves. I’m not going to play that game for this anthology. I’m simply going to say this is a very good book. You should make a point of buying and enjoying it. No special trumpeting is required when the rewards of reading it are so great.
For reviews of other anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan, see: Eclipse Two and Eclipse Three. There’s also a new website, Eclipse Online.
Eclipse Four was shortlisted for the 2012 Locus Award for Best Anthology. “Fields of Gold” by Rachel Swirsky has been shortlisted for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette 2011 and for the 2012 Hugo Awards for Best Novelette.
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Three edited by Ellen Datlow
The beauty and value of a “best of” anthology is as a demonstration of the strength of the genre under review. Now let’s be clear about this and, in doing so, assume there are objective criteria for judging the quality of fiction. Yes, yes, I know. Please forgive my attempt at humour. There could never be anything even vaguely objective in the process of judging fiction. But suppose, by whatever criteria you apply, only ten of the thousand and more stories published in any year are worthy of being included as one of the best. To make up the page count, the rest will be valiant failures. But if a “best of” anthology contains significantly more great than merely good stories, and there are no bad stories, it suggests there were plenty of high quality stories to choose from. Yes, I know it ultimately comes down to the taste of the editor making the selections and whether his or her taste matches my own. But this year’s The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 3 (Night Shade Books, 2011) edited by Ellen Datlow contains such a range and diversity of different themes and prose styles that I’m reassured the horror (and fantasy) field remains strong. No matter what criteria you apply, this is a wonderful book.
Allusive stories are the most difficult to write because once you start putting words on a page you’re limiting their meaning and defining their message. “At the Riding School” by Cody Goodfellow is a particularly fine example of the art of suggesting the routine occurrence of terrible things in an exclusive gated community dedicated to the “schooling” of young women — or perhaps that should be rewritten to involve their induction into a form of religious cult rooted in classical mythology where the participants in the rites risk rape and death if they fail to control themselves and the animals they must ride.
Stories about death and an afterlife are always tricky things to write but, in “Mr. Pigsny”, Reggie Oliver comes up with something genuinely unique. This is a completely fascinating tale about a faun or, since he evidently speaks classical Greek, a satyr with possible leprechaun overtones given one of his dance styles in a pub. Although the changing picture has been done to death (pun intended) in this context, we should not care. This is simply a delight!
Ellen Datlow meets an admirer from Down Under
“City of the Dog’ by John Langan is also weirdly wonderful as our hero’s on-off relationship with his girlfriend is suddenly distracted by her admission of infidelity and, later, her disappearance. Of course, if you set off to rescue her, it helps if you believe the explanation of what’s happened to her. That our hero only later acknowledges the truth means he does lose her to the other man.
“Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls” by Brian Hodge reminds us that the power of our imagination is often strongest when we are young. Suppose all we needed to make a wish come true was the chance to draw it. That would make the power of the pen the ultimate weapon unless you tamed the savage beast of your childhood desires and reluctantly grew into a dull adult. Now that would be the real horror, just remembering what you might have lost.
“Lesser Demons”(1) by Norman Partridge makes you wonder what magic might lie behind the rise of the dead and the predators that eat their way out of their bodies. Except, of course, if you get too obsessed with questions, you might miss the simple solution at the end of a gun. “When the Zombies Win” by Karina Sumner-Smith is such an elegant idea, nicely expressed and admirably brief. It demonstrates a story does not need to be pages long to be a riotous success. “—30—”(2) by Laird Barron on the other hand remains a mystery to me. I was unimpressed when I first read it, and do not find it improves the second time around. Nevertheless, even though I feel it fails to focus properly, it’s beautifully written — perhaps that’s why I find the result so frustrating. It’s my sense of what could have been. . . For the record, I think the story listed in Honorable Mentions is far better.
“Fallen Boys” by Mark Morris strikes an interesting note with the annoying child. I’ve certainly met whiny kids like him and found the whole school trip beautifully balanced to set up the outcome when the lights go out. “Was She Wicked? Was She Good?” by M Rickert also sets up an interesting question about child development. It asks whether parents should discipline their children and, if so, how they should do it. Similarly, “The Fear” by Richard Harland creeps up on the reader as if you half-felt someone touch you on the shoulder but, when you turned, there was no-one there. It has a meticulously paced flow as investigators follow the trail of breadcrumbs to satisfy their curiosity about whether the horror director’s first film was ever finished.
“Till the Morning Comes” by Stephen Graham Jones encourages us to wonder what might be real in that half-waking time during the night when our bladder demands attention, but there’s fear in our heart. “Shomer” by Glen Hirshberg offers an insight into the ways of bereavement and death in the Jewish community. It’s always good when a story is both informative and potentially scary. “Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside” by Christopher Fowler perfectly captures the hopelessness of life in a dead-end British seaside resort. It’s always amazing more of those imprisoned in these places don’t go on murder sprees to pass the time more interestingly. “The Obscure Bird” by Nicholas Royle is another of these weird ideas that works to inspire “horror” when you realise what’s going on. The last set of images is particularly striking.
“Transfiguration” by Richard Christian Matheson is powerful in a slightly off-beat way. It’s inclusion proves the admirable diversity of range in this anthology. This is another allusive story, this time about a trucker who, on his good days, thinks he’s an angel as he drives across the frozen landscape. “The Days of Flaming Motorcycles” is the best thing I’ve read by Catherynne M. Valente and one of the most interesting zombie stories of the year. “The Folding Man” by Joe R. Lansdale does a beautiful job in one of the most difficult tropes, namely maintaining the pace as the boys run for their lives. “Just Another Desert Night With Blood” by Joseph S. Pulver is as much about the writing as about the content. It’s highly stylised and somewhat poetic, but interesting. “Black and White Sky” by Tanith Lee is an outstanding story, beautifully evocative, recalling some of the classics of the early English natural disaster novels like J G Ballard’s The Wind From Nowhere. I’m not sure it’s horror, but it’s a superb read (who cares about genre boundaries, anyway?!). “At Night, When the Demons Come” by Ray Cluley continues a post-apocalypse vein with a story justifying acute misogyny. Who would have thought a few devils could cause so many problems when a few well-directed bullets can bring them down. There’s something disproportionate about the logic. Taking nothing away from the power of the story, it would be interesting to hear the author explain what happened to reduce the most gun-happy culture in the world to this sorry plight. And finally, “The Revel” is the second story by John Langan. This is wonderfully knowing, deconstructing the iconography of a werewolf story. It works beautifully both as a piece that could be used for academic study and for those who just want to read a very clever horror story.
Put all these elliptical comments together and you should get the message. The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 3 is a superb anthology, demonstrating just how well Ellen Datlow judges stories and picks winners.
(1) First appeared in Black Wings: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror
(2) First appeared in Occultation
Artwork by Allen Williams
For reviews of other books edited by Ellen Datlow, see:
Alien Sex
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume One
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Two
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Four
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Five
Blood and other cravings
Lovecraft Unbound
Supernatural Noir
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Two edited by Ellen Datlow
Anthologies can be the most fun to read, offering the chance to experience the complete range of the chosen theme or genre. The reason why this hope is often frustrated is that many editors have preset acceptance criteria, imposing their own rather limited sensibilities on the choices to be made. The result is usually monotony in style and/or content. Fortunately, there are exceptions to prove every rule and, in this instance, another anthology edited by Ellen Datlow is a perfect demonstration of how to appreciate and value diversity.
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Two (Night Shade Books) is one of the most pleasing anthologies of 2010 (so far). After the now mandatory reference to Wales as a separate country, we are straight down to business with “Lowland Sea” by Suzy McKee Charnas which is one of these genre-bending stories that starts off as primarily science fiction and then veers off into horror territory. It’s saved from the ordinariness of the telegraphed ending by the characterisation. Every reader should be there with Miriam in confronting the callous disregard of the other survivors. “The End of Everything” by Steve Eller is the first of the two zombie stories that again manages to rise above the routine by subverting the idea of saving the souls of the dead. “Each Piece I Show You Is A Piece of My Death” by Gemma Files and Stephen J Barringer is a particularly ingenious story which happily plays with ideas from semiotics in considering how images of individuals might become embedded in our cultural records. Art is continuously reinventing the past and how we remember people and events. So what began as collage is now mashup as digital technology enables the mixture of video images, animation, audio and text. The intriguing question posed by these authors is whether images of people can ever really be lost from our digital records. Indeed, might these images be self-replicating and capable of invading even supposedly “protected” records? It’s interesting to compare it with “Technicolor” by John Langan which is a story emerging from a lecturer’s deconstruction of “The Masque of the Red Death” by Poe. Although the ending has an inevitability about it, our arrival there is somewhat laboured. Sadly, I grew bored by the “study guide” as fiction. It would have been more effective at a shorter length. Files and Barringer carefully change the tone and point of view to keep us interested. Langan’s academic endeavour is worthy but ultimately a little monotonous.
“The Nimble Men” by Glen Hirshberg is one of these neat “short” stories in which something weird happens as the Northern Lights flicker over Canada. The “Wendigo” by Micaela Morrissette reintroduces more traditional ideas of cannibalism rather than the more common supernatural were/vampire things striding through a wooded landscape. “The Crevasse” by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud finds us in Lovecraftian territory as an icy wilderness may not be quite as empty as the humans believe. “Lotophagi” by Edward Morris is a well written recycling of cannibalistic devolved humans lurking in the deep woods. “The Gaze Dogs of the Nine Waterfall” by Kaaron Warren almost makes it on to my best of the best list but just misses out. It is a genuinely innovative fantasy/horror blend which has our two intrepid hunters rising above the disparaging sexism of the dog collecting world to journey off in search of the ultimately desirable additions to any collection. My only reservation about it is that there is a slight disconnection between the social commentary and the expedition. At least the dogs come out of it well.
“Dead Loss” by Carole Johnstone is a claustrophobic few days out over the deeps in a vulnerable trawler. In such cases, we always wonder who is trying to catch whom (or what). “Strappado” by Laird Barron takes us into that strange hinterland where a city’s fading commercial land is partially unoccupied and available for unconventional uses. As we have come to expect with Barron’s fiction, it’s the people who make the stories live although, this time, the Indian cityscape is a welcome departure from the more usual “dark” American settings.
For me, these are the standout stories. We start with “Mrs Midnight” by Reggie Oliver which is a wonderful story of a lurking revenant from Victorian times. We have all actually met or read about B-list celebrities, but this interior monologue is so pleasingly knowing, it makes the story so much better. The linkage to Jack the Ripper is cleverly handled and the creeping menace of the stalker well managed. Then along comes “What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night” by Michael Marshall Smith. This is a quiet and intimate piece. Unlike “It’s A Good Life” from the Twilight Zone which was over the top in the involvement of adults in the world of a child’s imagination, this creeps up on you quietly and then leaves you in the dark. It’s a remarkable example of authorial minimalism. Equally cunning in the way it captures an everyday annoyance and then hangs endless sadness on it, is “In the Porches of my Ears” by Norman Prentiss. It’s a genuinely unexpected resolution to the set-up as the all-too-human need to understand and then reinterpret the world leads to dishonesty for all the “right” reasons. We then come to a second outings of zombies with a difference in “Lonegan’s Luck” by Stephen Graham Jones. This is a puzzle story that starts in the middle and lets us work out exactly what is happening. Once we get started into this as one of the longer stories, it never lets up, carrying us through to a final image of our anti-hero caught in a Tantalus moment. “The Lion’s Den” by Steve Duffy flits between fantasy and horror in a fascinating intervention that may forever change the relationship between man and the animals. Stories like this are difficult to pull off because they require just enough detail to establish the possibility as credible and then great self-discipline not to overelaborate. The essence of the weird is that it is fundamentally inexplicable. Duffy has it right, leaving us to wonder what will happen next. Finally, “The Lammas Worm” by Nina Allan is a disturbing story about a waif picked up from the roadside by a passing circus troop. This has two narratives in parallel as we see the girl slowly accepted into the community and ultimately into marriage with one of the group, while a second couple’s destiny becomes entwined in uncovering the history of the girl and the forces that may be shaping events. What makes the read so satisfying is the self-sacrificing trust of the couples as they do their best to reconcile their circus lives with their needs as individuals.
Overall, this is clearly one of the best horror anthologies so far this year. Definitely worth the price of admission.
For reviews of other books edited by Ellen Datlow, see:
Alien Sex
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume One
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Three
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Four
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Five
Blood and other cravings
Lovecraft Unbound
Supernatural Noir
As an added note, “In the Porches of My Ears” by Norman Prentiss won the Bram Stoker Award 2010 for Short Fiction.
Eclipse Three edited by Jonathan Strahan
Given the editor starts off with a discussion of the jacket artwork, how can I avoid mentioning it. In terms of style, it’s a real blast from the past, and not necessarily in a good way. I suppose something abstract in a slightly futuristic mode is appropriate for a non-themed anthology, but this is a bit weird. We have a figure in red who could be making a thoroughly obscene gesture or looking to make a shadow puppet of Anubis with a really provocative pair of ears. He stands, legs astride, wearing one of those one-piece jumpsuits much favoured by space heroes of the 1950s. To his right is the eclipsed sun with perspective lines linking to what may be a partially disassembled robot, or perhaps that’s just a door knob and not a head. I can understand why Jonathan Strahan would want to spend the introductory pages defending it all. Anyway, here we are, under starter’s orders, with Eclipse Three (Night Shade Books), not surprisingly following on from Eclipse Two.
And we are off and running. . . except I am immediately pitched back into speculation on what this anthology is intended to be. “The Pelican Bar” by Karen Joy Fowler is a perfectly respectable piece of fiction about parents who send off their rebellious teen to a boot camp for reprogramming, if not depersonalisation. I am unimpressed by the jacket blurb describing this as a “strange incarceration”. It seems nothing more than a slightly polemical piece about the cruelty parents can inflict on their offspring. There’s not the slightest sign of anything remotely sfnal, fantastical or horrific about it. It’s a great story in its own right, but I disagree with the editorial choice, and placing it first in the anthology compounds the strangeness.* “A Practical Girl” by Ellen Klages somewhat gets us back on to a better track with the notion there’s magic in pure maths such that it can create its own perfect world. The irony is that the perfection resulting from a magic square is a closed loop no matter which direction you attempt to move. It’s nicely told as a period piece with a young girl intent on “saving” a younger boy she meets.
We really get moving with “Don’t Mention Madagascar” by Pat Cadigan. Whoever said karma was something you collected every time you passed “Go” by dying had not the good fortune to read this delightfully wrought story. I suppose the problem for Hindus and Buddhists is that few have the chance to visit Madagascar. “On the Road” by Nnedi Okorafor is a reworking of a standard horror trope as a woman comes to realise that matters of life and death can be shaped by powerful spirits. What makes this better than the usual efforts is the cultural relocation to Nigeria. I confess to reading very little fiction based in Africa, so this editorial choice briefly extended my repertoire.
“Swell” by Elizabeth Bear picks up the pace again with a marvelous story about a siren. There’s beauty in the perfectly-judged reaction of the man to the “gift” from this water nymph to him. I wish him every success and will be looking for his first CD when it’s released.
“Useless Things” by Maureen F. McHugh is a sad piece about a woman trying to eke out a living in the New Mexico countryside. It touches on the increasingly hot potato of illegal immigration, ties it to the hobo culture and leaves the woman at risk as hopefully “safe” men passing by, trade their labour for a meal. She makes dolls and diversifies into up-market sex toys to pay the bills. The hook to justify inclusion is vaguely horrific or, given the increasingly eclectic nature of the stories, perhaps we should be beyond genre expectations at this point.
Back into classic sword and sorcery with “The Coral Heart” by Jeffrey Ford, an entertaining romp through the usually dismal swamp of barbarians who have to fight their way out of trouble with their sword. This particular blade is a variation on the Gorgon theme, transmuting the wounded victims into coral rather than stone. Our “hero” and his tulpa are distracted by the lusty side of love in a trap seeking revenge. How it all works out is great fun. As an aside, I note that only four and a half of the authors for the fifteen stories included in the anthology are male. It’s reassuring that a male editor is sufficiently meritocratic to pick the best stories available without regard to gender.
It’s always sightly invidious to pick favourites from an anthology but, for me, there are three clear winners in this anthology, listed in the order of their appearance. The first is “It Takes Two” by Nicola Griffith. The balancing between the natural and chemical attraction is made most satisfyingly. The field trial of hormonal manipulation is wonderfully cruel, made all the more so because of its commercial context. It poses a difficult choice for the lab rat once alerted to the sequence of events leading thus far. The simple emotion of hope in the resulting decision feels right. “Sleight of Hand” by Peter S. Beagle — just mentioning the author’s name is almost enough to guarantee a top-three finish. How this man contrives to produce so many good stories is beyond me. It’s a magical consistency. In this case, we have a thematic return to Madagascar where, for a rather better reason, a person may earn a right to change what has happened. In Cadigan’s story, the girls rather blunder through to their “end”. Beagle resolves matters more poignantly. My final choice is “Yes, We Have No Bananas” by Paul Di Filippo. Taking the title of a 1922 song and then producing this wonderfully fey story of magical science in a post-apocalyptic America is no more than we have come to expect from this master storyteller. Having lived through food rationing, I know what it’s like to live in a world without bananas.
Back with the merely “very good”, we have “The Pretender’s Tourney” by Daniel Abraham. Again, this is a slightly odd choice in that it’s not really science-fictional — only a metallic meteorite falls — and barely fantasy, being rather more a historical piece about succession to a throne in generic mediaeval times with Welsh overtones. “Mesopotamian Fire” by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple walks a tightrope of humour and just about emerges unscathed. Writing in this style is very difficult to sustain over any length and this pair of authors time their throwing in of the towel just before it grows tedious. “The Visited Man” by Molly Gloss almost made my top three as a ghost story dealing with grief. It’s another nicely-judged story about a recently bereaved old man rescued from apathetic surrender by the intrusion of the artist who lives in the apartment below. The shading of melancholy into a more positive mood is gently captured as both men deal with their “issues”. As another aside, one of the paintings described in this story would have made a good cover.
“Galapagos” by Caitlin R Kiernan is a fairly routine story about an alien first contact triggering evolutionary shifts in the crew. It’s saved by the manner of its telling through the eyes of the sole human allowed to see the consequences. This enables most of the “action” to be left off-stage and so our own imaginations are more involved. Slightly less of the descriptions towards the end would have improved the finished product. Finally, we have “Dulce Domum” by Ellen Kushner which is an exercise in intertextualism, mashing in text from “Wind in the Willows” to illuminate this Christmas tale. I’m not sure it’s a success but it’s a brave piece of writing.
Looking back on the anthology as a whole, it has proved enjoyable if sometimes frustrating, offering stories of a kind I would not normally have read. Insofar as any editor can provoke readers into exploring fiction outside their declared zone of interest, Jonathan Strahan has bravely pushed the envelope. This is worth picking up.
*For the record, “The Pelican Bar” by Karen Joy Fowler won the World Fantasy Award 2010 for Best Short Story, “It Takes Two” by Nicola Griffith was shortlisted for the Hugo Award 2010 for Best Novelette, while Eclipse Three was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award 2010 for Best Anthology.
For reviews of other anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan, see Eclipse Two and Eclipse Four. There’s also a new website, Eclipse Online.
Thinking about books 