A Son of the Rock

Gollancz, 2005

Disclaimer:- Eric is one of my many acquaintances in the SF world. I have been in his company at various conventions and shared many talks over a glass or a meal. We stay in touch. He, for example, steered me in the direction of “€˜Postscripts”€™ which recently accepted my story “Osmotic Pressure.”

The Fall Of Tartarus is a collection of short stories/novellas Brown set on the planet Tartarus in the two hundred years before its sun was to go supernova. Published in various magazines between 1995 and 2000 they were not collected in the one book till 2005.

As a playground for Brown’s imagination Tartarus provides fertile soil. Tartarus is terrestrial and therefore familiar in some respects; jungles, lakes, extinct volcanoes and so on. In others it is not like Earth at all; bizarre plants, exotic locales, alien creatures, a rather restricted social organisation described as mediaeval. This gives the place a dated feel – the adolescent sexuality of A Prayer For The Dead notwithstanding. In particular the planet has affected some of its inhabitants, who, though descended from immigrants from Earth, can be totally unlike their forebears. There is a dreamlike quality to some of the events which adds to the strangeness. At times there is a stilted tone to the writing, emphasising the old-fashioned feel. Above all, life on Tartarus is never comfortable.

Reading the stories together it is possible to pick out various common threads. There is the same tonal quality throughout (which is not an absolute requirement of tales such as this) and extensive use of flashbacks. One character, usually the narrator, will be on a quest of some sort. Someone will be seeking to atone for past deeds. There is a strong emphasis on the importance of family. Religions feature strongly, with their usual exhortations to sacrifice and martyrdom, heightened here by adherents of various faiths that their excessive devotion may stem the sun’s demise. In several stories characters explicitly state that their destiny lies on Tartarus, though that, of course holds for everyone in all the stories, whether their characters realise it or not. Most obviously, and not surprisingly for such a doomed setting, there is a preoccupation with death. Not that all of the tales have a downbeat ending. Occasionally we are allowed a life-affirming conclusion.

I found myself wondering if sometimes, for original publication, Brown had to accommodate a particular story to the limits of a word count. The People of The Nova rushes a bit in the run-up to its climax and makes too little of the partly redemptive event that occurs afterward, though the reverse is true of The Hunting Of The Slarque which has a few longueurs.

It would be interesting to discover in what order the stories were written, how Brown developed his ideas. It is as well, though, that Dark Calvary finishes up the collection as there is nothing redemptive in it at all. This, of course, is when the supernova finally strikes. Farewell then, Tartarus.

If you like stories which, while not neglecting ideas or action, focus primarily on characters and their dilemmas, Brown won’t fail you.