“I am a Roman Catholic. But I really wouldn’t dream of trying to incorporate any moral teaching into my weird fiction. I am not a proselytiser. What attracts me most about the Church is its mystical dimension. I also believe that we exist in a fallen universe and that human nature is immutable.” (teemingbrain.com)
Quite an old-fashioned view from a writer born three years afterme. It is true – on the evidence here – that he never preaches. Still, it is often mindset and accompanying assumptions, we all have, that betrays the path being trod. 'A Call to Greatness' satirizes the Europe of today with the decadent myths of the past. A man of unknown history sends a parcel to a jaded Eurocrat that harbours a grand sweep of a tale of an exotic, fundamentalist fanatic and his account of past glories.
'The European dream was dead, he thought, the Europe of grand ideals was buried in the ashes of apathy. There was no brotherhood of nations, only the squalid struggle of the political and financial masters to line their own pockets, while the masses were brainwashed into a zombie-like existence under the false flag of liberty. All its values were secular and materialistic – with propagandistic jargon employed to justify citizens from detecting the corrosion of their own souls.' (p.13).
Elsewhere, Samuels comments;
'“The Other Tenant” is
a generic satire on the idea that only people on the left
can be “nice” (some disgruntled soul called it little more
than “red-baiting” in a review of the anthology it
first appeared in, which rather proved my point).' (ibid.)
Writing as a leftist myself, I am
not convinced. It reads more as a warning against ideology,
generally, and its distancing effect upon Robert Zachary in
particular. A latterly afflicted individual with no apparent
self-awareness beyond present tense perceptions. 'An Hourglass of the
Soul' concerns a newly-employed computer operator and his employer's
instruction for him to “drop everything for a few days in order to
reconfigure the mainframe” at a mysterious, underground complex
somewhere in Mongolia.
Continuing the sub-genre of dystopian SF is 'The Ruins of Reality,'
where, again, extreme power of management over the employee is
exercised, only this time to the ultimate degree. Both concern forms of mind-control;
the latter particularly graphic in its depiction as enforcement from
above compelled from within.
'Alistair' is classic Gothic
territory, involving an old, large, weed-entangled house, the
half-hidden generations from whom it was passed and the weird echoes
harboured in the newborn.
'My World Has No Memories' is set
upon a small boat, lost and adrift, its one occupant just awoken,
with no working guidance, and suffering amnesia. He appears to be a
survivor – but from what? And what is the strange organic growth
held in a jar?
In 'Outside Interference,' a
skeleton office staff in the midst of transferring to a new building
find themselves trapped “in the middle of the coldest winter snap
for a century or more.” While, the one way out may be no way out at
all.
'My Heretical Existence' finds a
city's sole authority on its hidden masonic 'tribes' become an unwitting inititate. The closest to a derivate entry here.
'In Eternity Two Lines Intersect' is
an appropriate title since it virtually returns us to the setting and
circumstance of 'The Other Tenant,' with a recovering patient with
lingering psychoses and no apparent memory of his past. Then, this
latter point is this collection's running theme.
Samuels has admitted in various
interviews that he works within long-established genre. However, like
Reggie Oliver, Mark Valentine and others, he has become something of
a master at each. If the settings here are traditional, this is an
exceptionally accomplished collection, with not a weak entry amongst
them.
* * * *
*
ST founder, David Longhorn, has been
editing this thrice-yearly anthology of new writings from his
North-East England home since the year 2000.
Three of the eight entries are
especially satisfying in their narrative focus, interest and
completion, without too obvious recourse to well-extracted sources.
Gillian Bennett's 'Mr and Mrs Havisham' explores the true identities
of a painting's subject, a wronged spirit, a dictatorial husband and
the woman who comes between them. My favourite entry here.
Sam Dawson's 'Look Both Ways'
depicts a lonely man's return to the faded seaside haunt of the
family holidays of his youth and the spirit of his late younger
sister, whose ghost also returns to watch for him and wait... Dawson's depiction of Seahaven, past and present, is very well done in the limited word count. (He has also drawn this and previous covers).
Finally, Tim Foley's 'Snowman,
Frozen,' which manages to evoke Stephen King while shaving him of his
over-long narrative excesses, leaving highlighted the latter's
storytelling strength. Mention should also be made of
Michael Chislett's fantastical 'A Name in the Dark.' A woman crossing
into a twilit garden steps from this world into another, experiencing
a form of fairy-led 'Midsummer Night's Dream' self-revelation. If it
reads like part of a larger project, that's because it is, according
to its author in the 'about' section at the back. Despite the
intriguing opening, this may try the patience of some unused to such
a radical change from naturalistic scenes.
The back pages also feature
reviews by Longhorn himself; on Swan River Press's 'Dreams of Shadow
and Smoke,' Ron Weighell's first collection in seventeen years,
'Summoning' (Sarob Press), John Howard's essay collection, 'Touchstones,' (Alchemy
Press) and 'The Loney'; Andrew Michael Hurley's intriguing, debut, folk-horror novel for Tartarus.
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