Tag: magazines

Tim Casson, ‘The Overseer’ (2010)

18th May 2010 / / 1 Comment

Depression-era London: our narrator, Darius, was born into a wealthy family, but is now having to deal with the hard economic times and has taken a job in a factory. He discovers a dark secret at its heart, in the form of the mill’s mysterious masked overseer. Casson evokes the atmosphere of the factory particularly well, and the ending takes the story takes the story off in a fascinating new direction. But the metaphorical underpinning doesn’t seem fully coherent, leaving me with the sense of a story containing two or three ideas that sit quite uncomfortably alongside one another, good though Casson’s writing is.

This story appears in Black Static 16. Read all my posts about that issue here.

Steve Rasnic Tem, ‘The Glare and the Glow’ (2010)

14th May 2010 / / 2 Comments

A man with a penchant for quotations  (though he can’t always remember who said them) buys some unusual light bulbs that illuminate rather more than he had bargained for. Rasnic Tem pitches the voice of his narrator just right (borderline insufferable, that is), and the tale is short — but it works.

Link
Melanie Tem’s and Steve Rasnic Tem’s website

This story appears in issue 227 of Interzone. Read all my blog posts about that issue here.

Chris Beckett, ‘Johnny’s New Job’ (2010)

12th May 2010 / / 3 Comments

Chris Beckett’s professional background is in social work, and (he says in his guest editorial) he was inspired to write ‘Johnny’s New Job’ by reactions to the Baby P case. In Beckett’s story, a girl’s ‘wicked stepfather’ leaves her to die down a well. This is judged to be the fault of Welfare, and a Welfare Officer is denounced in public by the Chief Accuser. A crowd of people (including the titular Johnny) is soon out for the Welfare Officer’s blood — and so events move inexorably on…

As a satire on kneejerk reactions, the flow of this story may not be too difficult to anticipate — but I suspect that’s rather the point. Beckett constructs his tale as a kind of larger-than-life fable: many characters are identified en masse or by role, rather than by name, so they come to represent more than just individuals (and even Johnny is something of an everyman), and the telling has a folk-tale quality about it. ‘Johnny’s New Job’ is swift, sharp, and very good indeed.

Links
Chris Beckett’s website
My review of The Turing Test, Beckett’s Edge Hill Prize-winning collection

This story appears in issue 227 of Interzone. Read all my blog posts about that issue here.

Nina Allan, ‘Flying in the Face of God’ (2010)

9th May 2010 / / 3 Comments

I’ve heard great things about Nina Allan’s fiction, but (as far as I’m aware) this is the first of her stories that I’ve read — and all those great things I’ve heard were correct.

In the world of this story, a process has been developed called the ‘Kushnev drain’ which alters human physiology to allow those who undergo it to travel through space, though they are changed fundamentaly as a result. Anita Schleif is making a film about female ‘fliers’, and in particular her friend Rachel Alvin. That’s the background, but the tale is less concerned with space travel than about the difficulties of dealing with profound personal change.

Anita is very fond of Rachel, and secretly distressed at the prospect of losing her friend, even though Rachel is fulfilling her ambition; the film is at least as much an attempt by Anita to hold on to her friend as it is a product of genuine interest in the subject. Allan also sets up some neat parallels that give the story a satisfying cohesion: Rachel’s single-minded determination to become a flier is not so different from Anita’s desire to keep Rachel in her life however she can;  and the transformation through which Rachel is going is analogous to the mental decline of Anita’s grandmother — both involve the loss of a human self as conventionally understood; so Anita is effectively seeing the two most important people in her life disappear before her eyes, albeit in very different ways.

‘Flying in the Face of God’ is a superb piece of fiction, and you can be sure that I’ll be looking out for more of Nina Allan’s stories in the future.

This story appears in issue 227 of Interzone. Read all my blog posts about that issue here.

The month in reading: April 2010

1st May 2010 / / 0 Comments

April was the month of the Clarke Award, and completing the shortlist led me to read my favourite book of the month — Far North, Marcel Theroux‘s tale of survival in the aftermath of environmental change. I also read two great coming-of=age novels in April: Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey, set in 1960s Australia; and The Spider Truces by Tom Connolly, set in 1980s Kent. And, in terms of short stories, Sarah Singleton‘s tale ‘Death by Water’ from Black Static 15 was my pick of the month.

Jon Ingold, ‘The History of Poly-V’ (2010)

20th April 2010 / / 3 Comments

In Jon Ingold’s story, Poly-V is a drug that enables people to relive their memories, recalling events in much greater detail than in the conventional process of remembering. The narrator, Will Sheppard, is one of the scientists who developed the drug and tested it on themselves; his account of that development is interspersed with scenes of his memories, as experienced under the influence of Poly-V. But can Will trust what he remembers?

Ingold is especially good with voice in this piece; Will’s character comes through strongly in the matter-of-fact, slightly detached narration, and I particularly liked the way the author retains the essence of Sheppard’s voice in a scene narrated by the four-year-old Will, even as it adopts a more child-like tone.

However, I’m not sure that the story is successful at a more structural level. Its secrets are revealed in a pattern that makes the tale less disorienting than I think it aims to be, though I appreciate the way it treats the fallibility of human memory.

This story appears in issue 227 of Interzone. Read all my blog posts about that issue here.

Black Static 15: Sarah Singleton, ‘Death by Water’

8th April 2010 / / 2 Comments

Still grieving over the loss of his wife, Jeanette, Ian Massey visits a succession of mediums in the hope of contacting her — but all they can do is stir his memories of Jeanette. Until, that is, he meets Spark…

This is a very fine story indeed. I particularly appreciate the way that the true depth of Ian’s grief is revealed subtly, in his increasingly desperate search for the mediums; and that the story’s tight structure (alternating between Ian’s present-day visits to a medium and flashback-dreams to key moments in his and Jeanette’s relationship), and the stark rhythms of its prose, add to the sense that Ian is trapped on his current path.

‘Death by Water’ is the first piece of Singleton’s work that I’ve read; I’ll have to keep an eye out for more.

Links
Sarah Singleton’s website
Index of my Black Static 15 posts

Black Static 15: Daniel Kaysen, ‘Babylon’s Burning’

15th March 2010 / / 1 Comment

A relatively short piece in which the narrator, a poetry translator named Daniel, reluctantly goes along with his brother to a party at the International Security firm where the latter works. This organisation worships ‘the Gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood’, and it seems those gods answer back. Whilst at the party, Daniel discovers that he has a gift for prophecy, and is offered a position at the company; he doesn’t want to accept, but the temptation may be too great…

I’m undecided about ‘Babylon’s Burning’. On the one hand, Kaysen’s writing is great (though the short paragraphs don’t always allow it to flourish); on the other, I don’t find the story particularly interesting (and the biblical coding of the names feels gimmicky to me in a story so short, where it doesn’t have room to blend in). I really don’t know which side of the fence to come down on, so… I’ll stay in the middle.

Link
Index of my Black Static 15 posts

Black Static 15: Alan Scott Laney, ‘Maximum Darkness’

13th March 2010 / / 1 Comment

A debut story now, and one that,unfortunately, misses the mark for me. ‘Maximum Darkness’ is the tale of  twenty-two-year-old Robin Parker, who has become plagued by visions — he sees auras of light and shadow around people. He doesn’t understand what they are, but remembers reading a story once about something similar; if he could only find the book it was in…

The problem with this story is that the real turmoil in Robin’s mind doesn’t come across strongly enough. We know that he’s deeply disturbed by his visions, but we’re watching him react to them from a distance, rather than experiencing them with him — and, because we’re not so invested in Robin’s experiences, it becomes harder tio empathise with him. ‘Maximum Darkness’ ends up as okay, but nothing more.

Link
Index of my Black Static 15 posts

Archives

Browse posts by author, original language of book, or post category

© 2024 David's Book World

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑

%d