A Son of the Rock

TTA Press, 96 p

John Kessel takes the guest Editorial and wonders about the utility of fiction in today’s ‘alternative facts’ world. In that context too, in Future Interrupted Andy Hedgecock^a reflects on the nature of beliefs and memory. Aliya Whiteley’s Climbing Stories^b appreciates the sequencing involved in ordering stories in an anthology – some have compared it to the similar process in musical albums – each choice reflects on previous and subsequent stories/tracks. In a bumper Book Zone Duncan Lawie^c calls the climate change themed A Year Without a Winter edited by Dehlia Hannah interesting, strange and irritating, I run my eye over the excellent This is How You Lose the Time War by Amar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone plus the anthology Palestine +100 edited by Basma Ghalayini, John Howard^d surmises that present day equivalents of the stories from the twentieth century in Menace of the Machine and The End of the World and Other Catastrophes, both edited by Mike Ashley, might not deal with their subjects very differently, Lawrence Osborn finds Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Brightness Long Ago entrancing, a book to be savoured many times, Maureen Kincaid Speller praises Mick Wood’s collection Learning Monkey and Crocodile for a “striking insight into how one might write genuinely good stories in a respectful way”, Barbara Melville thought Driving Ambition by Fiona Moore disappointing since it didn’t work for her as it’s told by the wrong narrator and reads like an early draft, Stephen Theaker^e characterises Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes as goofball space opera with a more serious protagonist but far too long, Ian Hunter^f says The Library of the Unwritten by A J Hackwith has at least one narrative viewpoint too many but the author has a hit on her hands, Georgina Bruce calls The Complex by Michael Walters a ‘startling and confident debut’ but is ponderous reading at times and its women only operate in relation to the men but is still elusive, stylish, complicated and interesting, while Andy Hedgecock^g delights in the ‘narrative treasure trove of wit, compassion, excitement and erudition’ that is Ivory Apples by Lisa Goldstein.

In the fiction:-

Society is literally stratified for Sib and Malmo in The Winds and Persecutions of the Sky¹ by Robert Minto. Their first plan is to adopt strict hygiene and work hard to access the lowest floors. Malmo eventually gives up and instead climbs their skyscraper till he can access the outside. Sib follows him trepidatiously, but the girl he finds there and who helps him seek out Malmo wants only to go inside.
In Of the Green Spires² by Lucy Harlow a plant-like organism called a starthistle takes over Oxford before retreating again leaving its offspring behind.
The titular entity of Jolene³ by Fiona Moore is a sentient truck, who has left her rider, part-time country singer Peter McBride, for another job. McBride has also lost his wife and dog but wants the truck back and is referred to our narrator, Noah Moyo, a consultant autologist, to help with that. Jolene (“‘Please don’t take my van,’”) turns out to be a hard case. (Pun intended.)
The Palimpsest Trigger⁴ by David Cleden tells the story of Marni, who works for one of the palimps, creatures who can overwrite people’s memories.
Fix That House!⁵ by John Kessel starts off as it will be an account of a house restoration project for a TV programme but it later chillingly turns out that houses are not the only antebellum things that have been restored.
The James White Award Winner, Two Worlds Apart⁶ by Dustin Blair Steinacker, features an inhabitant from Earth (candidate to join the benevolent intragalactic Consortium) tested for suitability on a mission to persaude the inhabitants of a planet without a star into the fold.

Pedant’s corner:- ^a Goebbels’ (Goebbels’s.) ^bH G Wells’ (Wells’s,) Mary E Wilkins’ (Wilkins’s.) ^c“I took exception with” (it’s ‘took exception to’) “There are a variety of” (there is a variety of.) ^d Jenkins’ (Jenkins’s,) “Usually it is the entire planet and its inhabitants that is threatened” (the ‘and’ makes it plural, so, ‘that are threatened’.) ^e“to the ends of universe” (of the universe.) ^fLiz Williams’ (Williams’s,) “our merry band are initially trying to bring back” (our merry band is initially trying to bring back.) ^gDickens’ (Dickens’s.)
¹Written in USian, miniscule (minuscule.) ²St Giles’ (Giles’s.) ³“to lay over top of it” (to lie over the top of it,) veterinarian (this is set in the UK and narrated by a Brit, hence vet, or veterinary surgeon.) ⁴Socrates’ (x4, Socrates’s,) similarly Endymius’ (x2, Endymius’s,) “Shafts of weak light like heavenly search lights, stabbed down” (no need for the comma.) ⁵Written in USian. ⁶Written in USian, shrunk (shrank,) “as if the hybrid had never spoke” (spoken,) “none of the Tarsach were coming forward” (none … was coming forward,) “between she and them” (between her and them.)