Over the past few weeks I have read the short stories nominated for this year’€™s BSFA Awards. I am assuming that, as in the past couple of years, the BSFA will be producing a booklet containing them but since each has been posted on the internet (there is a link from the BSFA’s Awards page to the online versions which is how I managed to read them – though I found off a screen is not the most comfortable of ways to do so) perhaps that might not happen.

The Silver Wind by Nina Allan, from Interzone issue 233, is a kind of time-travel story mixed with parallel worlds. It tells of the encounter of a man from a fascistic future Britain with a genius who makes clocks (which he refers to as time machines.) To begin with there is too much info dumping and throughout a lot is told rather than shown. Perhaps the story needed more space to breathe but I felt the sureness of touch of an accomplished story teller was missing. There is a use of words that is not quite precise -€“ eg ‘hoping one soldier would not see me’ rather than ‘€œhoping none of the soldiers would see me’€ – and twice we are treated to the peculiar phrase, ‘€œIt was growing dusk,’€ but at least Allan knows the use of ‘€œnor’ as in, ‘€œnot for love nor money nor any of these new-fangled gadgets.’

The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell, from Asimov’s, July2011, is set in an altered future where European monarchies strive to keep the balance of power throughout the Solar System, souls have weight that is aligned to dark matter and Newton came up with a kind of relativity theory which allows space to be folded – all amenable to a tale of espionage and derring-do admixed with betrayals of various sorts. This stretches suspension of disbelief at times but overflows with ideas and is excellently written.

Afterbirth by Kameron Hurley, from Kameron Hurley’€™s website, is about a woman in a backward-leaning religious society which is engaged in a never-ending war, whose rulers have deliberately cut it off from the stars – originally as an escape from whatever’€™s out there but now to prosecute the war better. In her forbidden astronomical observations she finds God in a torn filter laid across the night sky. Again there is a fair bit of info dumping -€“ perhaps inevitable in stories of short length.

Covehithe by China Miéville, from The Guardian, 20/4/11, features sunken oil-rigs returning to land to drill into the earth and lay – eggs? seeds? – from which smaller rigs later emerge. Atmospheric, but again info-dumpy. The human involvement in Covehithe – a father and his daughter observing one such landing -€“ doesn’€™t really overlap with the SF background. Another scenario where society has suffered extreme breakdown and the military has a strong presence.

Of Dawn by Al Robertson, from Interzone 235, has a woman whose soldier brother has been killed being inspired by his poetry, the music of a long neglected composer, an all but forgotten TV documentary and a figure from Greek myth to produce a synthesis of poetry and music by bringing all those strands together. The final part of the jigsaw is provided by a shadowy figure in a village commandeered by the army long ago, but which had inspired both poet and musician. The story contains echoes of the Green Man myth and illustrates that English fascination with the pastoral. The info dumping here is well embedded.

The futures shown by the five stories are all bleak, having in common repressive regimes of either military or religious stamp. SF is never about the future, though. These stories tell us a lot about where we are now.

As stories though, rounded works of fiction, I found most of them unsatisfying. The only truly successful one was Paul Cornell’s. If these represent the best of last year the SF short story is in a bad way.

Speaking of Badfinger, this song of theirs only just creeps in to this category as it was released in the UK in December 1969.

Badfinger were one of the (few?) successes of the Beatles’ Apple label. The only other one I can recall was Mary Hopkin.

Badfinger: Come And Get It

I remember reading somewhere in the late 90s a complaint that “none of today’s bands have a knowledge of music that goes back more than ten years,” or words to that effect. In that case, I thought, why do Embrace sound like Badfinger?

I can’t remember which Embrace song it was but Badfinger’s was either, or both, of these.

Badfinger: Day After Day

Badfinger: No Matter What

The Mercat Press, 1986, 288p

The House With The Green Shutters has an important place in Scottish literature as when it was originally published in 1901 it represented a break from the sentimentality of the Kailyard School and prefigured the work of Hugh MacDiarmid and Lewis Grassic Gibbon, among others. A warning, though. The book does contain a wheen of Scots words and phrases which may be a barrier to the more general reader.

The eponymous house, an imposing edifice in the town of Barbie, has been built by John Gourlay to reflect his position in the life of the town where he has a monopoly as a carrier. Gourlay has a “€œguid conceit of himself,”€ as we Scots say, and throws his weight about both metaphorically and – as he has a shortish temper – at times literally. His son, also called John, expects to inherit the carriage business and has neither the motivation nor aptitude to shine at school.

All begins to change with the return to Barbie from a sojourn in Aberdeen of James Wilson, whom Gourlay, in true Scottish fashion, at first dismisses due to his origins, (the, “Ah kent his faither,” reflex – see under ‘ken.’) Wilson soon sets himself up as a rival carrier. The opportunity the coming of the railway presents to Wilson gives him the lever to outwit Gourlay and precipitate a slow spiral of descent. Gourlay’€™s determination to outdo Wilson in everything leads him to send his son to University in Edinburgh where his character faults become magnified.

Throughout the book the author illuminates many aspects of the Scottish character as well as more general traits. The “€œbodies” – perhaps “sweetie wives” would be a more modern description – who gossip and scheme on street corners are especially well depicted. However, as perhaps reflects the times in which the book is set, the women characters are little more than cyphers.

The novel is apparently the first book in the English (sic) language read by Jorge Luis Borges (see under ‘criticism’) who thereafter, “€œwanted to be Scotch.”€ Bizarre.

How many clones does it take to change a light bulb? Why did the chicken cross the wires? The members of Edinburgh’s premier spoken-word performance collective offer their unique perspectives on science and fiction in all-new stories. Warning: may contain rocket science, brain surgery and assorted nuts!

Writers’ Bloc’s latest venture is part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

Brave New Words is on Wednesday 4th April 2012, at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, 8-10pm.

Tickets are £8/6 and can be booked through the Science Festival.

Apart from the War Memorials themselves there are two other memorials in the Gardens.

One is to the victims of the Holocaust.

The other commemorates Sir Sandford Fleming, born in Kirkcaldy and the inventor of Standard Time. The link (Wikipedia’s entry on Standard Time) says Fleming was Canadian but the one on the man himself is more nuanced. He emigrated to Canada when he was 17.

Sadly a few of the trees in the gardens suffered damage in the winter storms and have had to be cut down. The stumps are not really photogenic.

Published in Interzone 234, May-June 2011.

The Smallworld of the title, known as Mount Ararat, has come about as the result of the merging of two separate planetoids under the influence of an extremely dense neutronium sphere, now at its heart. It orbits within the rings of Naphil, a Jovian world in the solar system of a red giant star, 23 Kranii. Mount Ararat has at most a few hundred inhabitants but the book concentrates on the Reborn-in-Jesus family (yes, really) and their protector, an armed robot they know as the Devil. In accord with all these biblical resonances the extended family’s children have names such as Testament, Measure, Apostle, God’s Wound, Beguiled-Of-The-Serpent, Only-God-Is-Perfect and Be-Not-Near-Unto-Man-In-Thy-Time-Of-Uncleanness. Yes. Really.

Described on the credits page as a novel, Smallworld is in fact a series of shorter pieces related only in the sense that they all feature members of the Reborn-in-Jesus family and take place in the same setting. The resultant lack of narrative flow, of an overall arc, its stop-start nature, compromises the book as a coherent whole. The five, or seven, stories (the last has three sub sections) relate the family’s encounters with various incomers whose appearances can be unexplained. The tone is kept deliberately light throughout, and thus runs into a further problem.

With very few exceptions Science Fiction and comedy do not make comfortable bedfellows. Too often the comedy unbalances the SF or else is not comic enough. The most successful mix the two seamlessly, embed them in each other, as in Eric Frank Russell’s Next of Kin, and the result can still be a cogent comment on human – or alien – affairs. The SF must also stand on its own merits and not be entirely derivative. Unfortunately, in Smallworld, Green does not always successfully manage to avoid the pitfalls inherent in the form.

The book’s fundamental lack of seriousness is deleterious. Its targets for satire are either too easy or too pat – jailbirds, space pirates, tax collectors – and its references scattershot (Santa Claus/Father Christmas and the first three of the Twelve Days of Christmas in the titles of the last story, Helen of Troy, a plethora of biblical allusions over and above the manifold Reborn-In-Jesuses as well as casual allusions to 21st century ephemera of which the inhabitants of Mount Ararat would most likely be totally ignorant – though we, of course, are not.) The ramifications for daily life of the structure of a small world as described here are for the most part unexplored.

In addition, the cosmology of the book is unconvincing, the Physics and Chemistry of dubious lineage and accuracy. (An example. Sulphur dioxide, while noxious, does not smell of rotten eggs: that is hydrogen sulphide.) Small errors such as this can fatally undermine confidence in the author and in the tales he or she is trying to tell.

At the level of the fiction, rather than experiencing background as the stories unfold, we find prodigious information dumping and paragraphs of expository dialogue. With sufficient guile this can be a strength and elsewhere has been made into a feature of the comedy (galactic encyclopaedia anyone?) but no such approach is adopted here.

There is too the lurking sense that Green has not lavished care on his characters, who are unconvincing, barely more than ciphers, present only to progress the plot(s) and voice the jokes, hence failing to engage empathy. Quite apart from the family other names can be over elaborate, some characters being known mainly by their job descriptions – Optometrist Wong, Social Correctness Officer Asahara. Others, for no obvious reason, “speak” in CAPITALS. This hostage to fortune invites invidious comparisons with a previous purveyor of comedic SF/fantasy.

If your tastes lean towards comedy with not too much rigour this may be for you. If your preference is for strongly drawn, nuanced characters reacting to and combatting life’s vicissitudes, then maybe not.

I have previously posted pictures of Kirkcaldy War Memorial here.

There is a recent addition of a plaque commemorating the dead of post-World War conflicts. One name each appears from Palestine, Malaya, N. Ireland and Afghanistan.

Also in Kirkcaldy War Memorial Gardens is a stone commemorating the veterans of the D-Day Campaign in Normandy.

A few photos of Gayfield Park, home of Arbroath FC, from last Saturday.

This is the view of the ground from near Arbroath War Memorial.

The next was taken from an excellent vantage point to see that Mark Gilhaney’s shot last Saturday did cross the line after bouncing down from the bar. It also shows the north covered terracing.

These next two remind me so much of Boghead.

All that’s missing is the pie-stall set into the side of the stand (but that went when they replaced the old pavilion at Boghead.)

And, yes, Gayfield is only five metres from the high-tide line.

Some more photos of Gayfield are on my flickr.

Creedence was one of those bands that spanned the 60s/70s crossover. This is a song from 1971; towards the end of their chart run in the UK, but it barely made the top 40. I think it’s the descending bass line during the refrain that makes me like it so much. It’s simple but, to me, effective.

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Have You Ever Seen The Rain?