A Son of the Rock

TTA Press, 2013, 92 p.

Novella no. 2 from TTA Press, publishers of Interzone and Black Static.

This is a strange atmospheric piece, very well written.* It is set in a Greece where iPads and emails are in everyday use and holographic people are difficult to discern from real ones but triremes roam the seas and Carthage has fought a war with Corinth within the past 100 years.

When narrator Layla Vargas was young her mother was executed in a bizarre way for having unnatural powers. Layla has now grown and set out for a new life in Atoll City. On the bus on the way she meets an old woman who will influence her future. Layla’s uncommon ability to sew tapestries attracts the attention of a woman whose son has a strange disease and who wishes Layla to cure him. Layla is reluctant to be thought unusual.

Despite the SF trappings there is throughout the feel of fantasy and the dénouement is firmly fantastical. It was refreshing to read a piece in that vein not firmly rooted in mediævality.

The writing is measured and beautifully modulated, the characters rounded and believable. The story concluded a bit like a popped balloon though, all the intrigue that had been carefully built up thereafter more or less dribbling away. It was as if Allan had come up against her word limit and had to find a way to stop. That’s a pity as there was scope here for more exploration of the scenario and greater length. Allan knows what she is doing though and does it well.

*It is a pity, however, that in a novella entitled Spin there is a “span” count of 1.