Grafton, 1992, 414 p.

Sadly not a book about last season’s FA Cup winners nor indeed the building erected in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851 (subsequently moved to Sydenham in 1852 before it was destroyed by fire in the 1930s) and after which that football club was named. Neither is the palace built of crystal, nor even glass. Instead, it’s an ice palace, built in the realm of Ice from a seed planted by the demon Regneniel.

Though Cray, son of sorceress Delivev Ormoru of Castle Spinweb, familiar from Eisenstein’s previous book Sorcerer’s Son, is the nominal protagonist of this sequel, it is actually Aliza, Cray’s heart’s desire as revealed in the mirrored web constructed by his friend Feldar Sepwin, around whom it revolves. After many viewings where he saw nothing in the mirror, she first appeared to him as a girl, then over the years grew into a young woman. Only much searching in the realms of Air, Water, Fire and Ice (each realm has its own kind of demon) by Cray’s mother’s demon lover, Gildrum – not a hyperbolic description, Gildrum is literally a demon in this scenario, but that does not necessarily mean he is demonic – finds Aliza’s location in the titular Crystal Palace. It is effectively a prison where she has been placed by her grandfather Everand, a minor sorcerer, to be taught to be a great sorceress by Regneniel whom she believes to be under her control but is really beholden to Everand. This involved Everand removing Aliza’s soul and hiding it somewhere in the palace.

Prior to the book’s opening Cray had freed as many demons as he could from their enslavement to their masters. For a certain kind of sorcerer this made him their enemy. Everand did not need Cary’s interest in Aliza to feel animosity towards him.

Everand is, though, an unsatisfactory antagonist, too one-dimensional and blinkered to be any sort of foil for Cray and his chums.

I only really read this one as I had already read Sorcerer’s Son. I prefer Eisenstein’s stories of Alaric the Minstrel to these ones.

Pedant’s corner:- Nothing to report.

Hamish Hamilton, 2024, 292 p.

This is the third in Barker’s Troy series. Unlike the first two, which were narrated by Briseis (the former princess of Lyrnessus, a town sacked by the Greeks before they ventured on to its ally Troy, with Briseis being given to Achilles as a prize of war,) this novel’s main narrator is Ritsa, a friend of Briseis, but now a possession of Machaon, physician to Mycenean King Agamemnon, and body-slave (or, as she puts it, catch-fart) to Troy’s Princess, Cassandra, herself Agamemnon’s bed-slave, though they had gone through a form of marriage.

Cassandra is famed for her gift of prophecy; a gift bestowed on her by the God Apollo, whose priestess she was, but also cursed by him never to be believed since she refused his advances.

Ritsa’s tale is narrated in first person past tense but some chapters of the book are in the third person present tense from the viewpoints either of Cassandra or of Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra. This is useful authorially as of course Ritsa cannot have access to scenes where she is not present.

The book’s title is, of course, ironic. The home they journey to was never that of the Trojan women; only of the Greeks who took them captive. It is also slightly inappropriate in that the sea voyage to Mycenae is over before the book is even halfway through – though less so in the sense that by the novel’s end Cassandra’s journey home is utterly complete.

Some of the prose and dialogue is in a modern register which might jar with the ambience of myth which Barker is dealing with. But in looking at these events/stories with a modern eye (Barker’s controlled indignation, even rage, at the treatment of women in these tales, while not getting in the way of the story she tells, is never far away) an up-to-date treatment is absolutely appropriate. There is also some inter-sexual politics at play when Ritsa notes that, “She” (Cassandra) “was speaking in a Daddy’s-little-girl voice, the kind that some men find mysteriously attractive and makes every woman within earshot want to slap you.”

Ritsa bitterly contemplates Cassandra’s question about a description of the ship’s figurehead Medusa (another misrepresented woman?) as a monster, “Who decides who the monster is?” and Machaon’s reply, “The winner.”

Medusa did not win, and neither has Ritsa, whose monsters lie in front of her: the Greeks who have the temerity to call Trojans barbarian, while themselves being the purveyors of savagery. Only the Medusa’s captain, Andreas, treats her as worthy of respect. (Or is that only because he has always fancied her?)

Agamemnon is prime monster, even if he is haunted by visions of his daughter Iphigenia, sacrificed to the gods to secure fair winds for the voyage to Troy. (His palace in Mycenae is also haunted: by the hand and foot prints of his cousins, killed by his father, Atreus, and their bodies fed by him to theirs, Thyestes, with their feet and hands shown to Thyestes to prove he had eaten them. Greek myth is a horrifically bloody edifice.)

But the heart of this story doesn’t lie with either Cassandra or Ritsa; nor Agamemnon. This is Clytemnestra’s time of reckoning. Ten years ruling in Agamemnon’s stead – and ruling well – only to be ignored the moment he returns; ten years worshipping her dead daughter, erecting a temple in her honour which no-one arriving by sea could avoid seeing; ten years devising a calculated, elaborate revenge for Iphigenia’s death. A dish served cold, with relish.

But every action has its conseqences. Revenge begets revenge. Clytemnestra’s remaining children, Electra and Orestes, will be sure to avenge their father.

Not that Ritsa will be around to see that. Barker instead contrives a more hopeful fate for her.

Pedant’s corner:- Three sentences of Ritsa’s narration are for some reason given in the present tense. “Achilles’ child” (Achilles’s; most names ending in s were given only s’ rather than s’s when possessives, Aegisthus’, Andreas’, Orestes’, Iras’, Briseis’, etc,) “more like, a bowl of barley porridge” (doesn’t need that comma,) “that some men find mysteriously attractive” (ought to be ‘that some men mysteriously find attractive’,) had never showed” (had never shown.) “The guard come toward us” (The guard came towards us.)

Recently arrived from ParSec magazine and now on my sidebar, a new book to read and review; to wit City of All Seasons by Oliver K Langmead and Aliya Whiteley.

I haven’t read any Langmead up till now but have read a couple of Whiteley’s books. She writes well.

The deadline for ParSec 14 is probably a bit too imminent for the review to make that issue but there will be ParSec 15 to come.

The Slab, 2024, 354 p. (No price given.) Reviewed for ParSec 12.

Notwithstanding the success of The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and the Discworld series (both of which editor Donna Scott mentions in her introduction) I have never found Science Fiction and humour to be easy bedfellows, though I do admit to having a few guffaws when reading Eric Frank Russell’s Next of Kin many (many) moons ago. Indeed, I read the first few Discworld books and was only amused once – by an outrageous pun. (In Equal Rites in particular I thought there was a more serious book struggling to emerge from under its surrounding baggage.)

But we all need a good laugh in these disturbing times. So, with a will, to the contents.

As with all anthologies the quality and execution vary but in one with a premise like this it is inevitable that the tone of each story tends towards being similar.

One story that certainly hits the spot is Sundog 4 by Alice Dryden. A homage to the corpus of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson – familiarity with that œuvre may be required for a full appreciation – its plot has the breathless yet carboard quality of the different puppet series (and of the ones with actors whose dialogue might as well have been uttered by puppets) while slipping in direct references to those many shows. Very enjoyable. One might even say FAB.

Elsewhere we have a marriage broker on a Venus where every inhabitant – even the tentacled ones – seems to be Jewish, struggling to find a match for his client. A man signs up for an Intergalactic Cultural Exchange Plan with predictable unlooked for results. There is a warning about the implications of (mis)using an up to four-dimensional photocopier, particularly as regards photocopying arses – or ex-girlfriends. A minor convict set to do community work in an old people’s home is surprised by the inhabitants’ behaviour. A bored spaceship Captain leaves an AI in charge of his ship while he goes into cold sleep: after a 60 year delay in waking due to a meteorite strike he finds the ship’s bots have gone rogue. A robot cobbled together from spare parts by an aged Professor to commit burglaries for him fails in its final attempt; but he doesn’t. A bunch of Spiderbots battles against Mandroids® and Robosapiens® to try to save the human world. A family finds their virtual holiday goes wrong; for a start they’re not all on the same one. A scenario where every living thing has its own type of Grim Reaper, De’Swine, De’Fungi etc, and they have a philosophical problem with the big one, De’Ath. On a world plagued by sand an experienced, not to say old, female drug smuggler has to negotiate yet another double cross. Would-be students of a Present Studies course are encouraged to kill Hitler via time travel while their attempts are monitored by a course tutor who knows those attempts will fail. Dating Apps are beyond old hat when 4C (foresee; get it?) comes along to show users a trailer of how any relationship will evolve: a situation itself not beyond manipulation. In a future depression where eggs have become horribly expensive a banjo player makes his money by his seeming ability to make chickens lay freely; but he’s really selling something else. A mad scientist invents a process rendering his body incorporeal seemingly only in order to torment his stepson (who is savvier than he thought.) Aliens attracted by Earth’s radio and TV emanations abduct a woman to explain it all: they remain baffled; she puts the experience down to a spiked drink. People who shuffle through existence after the bombs fall cope by going to open mic nights. A religious woman who dies in undignified circumstances – though not anything like as shameful as her husband’s demise – gets a surprise in the afterlife. An explanation of the history, and future, of humans’ fear of spiders. A waitress in an Australian restaurant discovers the menu’s ‘kangaroo in orange sauce’ option is a manifestation of an alien invasion. The malfunctioning of a teleportation device poses an ethical dilemma for the duplicates it spews out every twenty minutes. To pep up an ageing lothario from a long line of such with an affinity for ginger, his doctor arranges for him to attend a Ginger Girls Gala, a convocation of those delightful lovelies. A transcript of a Prime Ministerial Press conference where it is repeatedly denied that time travellers have come back from the year 2345 to interfere in the present day, and where the questions spiral into more and more bizarre territory. A report outlining the genesis and results of five failed experiments in eugenics. A newly married man buys the naming rights of a star for his wife: twenty years (and an impending divorce later) they find themselves transported to that star’s system, where they are being worshipped as gods. A rich man’s attempt to remove any influence of trade unions on business practice, by travelling back in time to have a law passed, has unexpected consequences: not least for him.

Comedic fiction can be hit or miss in the eye of the beholder. Laughs in Space has more than enough hits to satisfy the jaundiced reviewer.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- Two stories’ titles are missing from the contents page – though they follow the starting title Random Selection. There are some uneven paragraph indentations. Otherwise; “‘He’s brain in a jar!’” (He’s a brain in a jar!) ambiance (ambience,) “then the girl up and asked” (upped and asked,) a piece of direct speech opened with a single quotation mark but ended with a double one, “a cut-and-dry case” (the phrase is ‘cut-and-dried’,) “and laid back” (and lay back.) “A horde of Flergians were spread out in the garden” (a horde … was spread out,) antennas (antennae [as used elsewhere],) “yelled to the top of his lungs” (yelled at the top of his lungs,) Jims’ (x2, Jims’s,) “the skin on her arms not as taught” (not as taut,) slipperier (what’s wrong with ‘more slippy’?) smidgeon (smidgin or smidgen but definitely not smidgeon,) “off of” (just ‘off’. Please?) “a per centage” (a percentage,) Professors’ (Professor’s,) Professors (Professor’s,) epicentre (centre,) “a trail of bone-white husks litter the highway” (a trail … litters the highway,) “none of them … have a clue” (none of them … has a clue,) miniscule (minuscule,) “Woward meister” (Meister,) “of a film … of a bean growing, its roots uncurling,” (its shoots surely?) “but he’s no idea” (but he’d no idea.) “‘Who’s Wendy,’ Candy asked’” (‘Who’s Wendy?’ Candy asked,) “the image pixilated (pixelated; pixilated means drunk.) “‘It was just figure of speech’” (just a figure,) D’Apes (elsewhere De’Apes,) “lay a … hand on” (laid a … hand on,) “into De’Apes face” (into De’Apes’s face.) Mortallity (Mortality – spelled correctly one line later,) “looked pointedly looked downwards” (only one ‘looked’ needed,) “steadied themselves” (x 2, in both cases this was an individual; steadied themself?) “‘And who come for them?’” (comes.) Gavrilo Principe (Gavrilo Princip,) “had lain the table” (had laid the table,) “Dai lay down the hammer” (laid down,) “‘I can say with them for good’” (I can stay with them for good,) “when you know fully well” (the idiom is ‘know full well’,) “the rest of the room are hanging on his every couplet” (the rest of the room is hanging on… ,) “from whence they came” (whence = from where, from whence then = from from where, just ‘whence they came,) a full stop after the closing quotation mark of a quote instead of before it, “it as too real” (it was too real,) “for six and a half decade” (decades,) in one story though not in others the convention of a repeated opening quotation mark on a new paragraph within an extended piece of dialogue was not followed (x 2,)  a missing full stop, “before fished them out” (before I fished them out,) “ginger nut biscuits and ginger snaps” (aren’t they the same type of biscuit) bikkies (x 6, this affectionate term for biscuits is usually spelled biccies.) Games of Thrones (the author probably intended the plural of Game,) “‘since record began’” (records,) “the committe were somewhat mollified” (the committee was…,) two out of five of one story’s subheadings were italicised when the first three were not, “seven hundred ninety two” (seven hundred and ninety two,) “taught and impressive muscles” (that’ll be ‘taut’, then,) “were stood” (were standing,) “were sat” (x 2, were sitting,) “it had taken her taken her quite a long time” (remove one ‘taken her’,) “‘this the leader of our army’” (this is the leader,) “barring Pilates’ way” (Pilates’s way,) “‘Ready!’ came Pilates reply’” (Pilates’s.) “Stood at either end of the generator they each pulled a leaver” (Standing at either end of the generator they each pulled a lever.)

I have received another book for review.

This is a collection of short stories plus a novella, taking inspiration from “Scottish folklore, landscapes, superstitions and omens” and written by Lyndsey Croal. It is titled Dark Crescent.

Ms Croal seems to write mostly in the fantasy genre.

Earthlight, 2002, 678 p, plus v p Dramatis Personae and ii p Map.

This is the fourth in the series of books where Turtledove unrolls his transposition of the Second World War in Europe into a fantasy setting – complete with mages, sorcerous energy, dragons, behemoths, leviathans and unicorns – though those last appear to have little military use and do not feature much.

His style is to relate episodes in the lives of various viewpoint characters to outline the progress of events in the wider world and/or the effects of those events on his subjects. The coming back to familiar characters is, as ever, marred by repetition of information the reader already knows about them or of thoughts they already had.

Rulers of the Darkness covers that juncture of the war where its outcome is not clear and has as its main military encounter an analogue of the Battle of Kursk. Meanwhile the sorcery equivalent of the Manhattan Project continues apace but clues are dropped that its effects will be to do with the manipulation of time rather than explosive destruction. The equivalent of the Holocaust here is not exact. There is racial hatred, yes, but it is deployed against a group, Kaunians, who had previously been imperial masters. The lethal form that hatred takes is to use its victims’ life energy to sorcerous ends.

Just occasionally (ie, once) Turtledove allowed a character to behave in a way that goes against previous conduct and attitudes. This is so rare with a Turtledove story that its occurrence was notable. And it was still tinged with a degree of self-serving.

Once again, misogyny, particularly among the soldiery, where here it spills over into rape, is rife. But then, soldiers behave as soldiers behave. It seems that is ever with us.

Despite a few people trying to do their best in difficult circumstances this is a savage world, with some bestial actors. It is not enviable in any way.

Pedant’s corner:- I note the map of Derlavai has been updated to say Bothnian Ocean to both west and east rather than Bothian to the west. Otherwise; “re-minding” (it wasn’t a line break, though may have been in the original manuscript, so; ‘reminding’,) ditto with Skrun-da (Skrunda,) “suggested than anyone” (that anyone,) “it chased town and caught” (chased down,) Gippias’ (Gippias’s. Again, most often names here ending in ‘s’ are given s’ rather than s’s when rendered as possessives, though not in every case,) “was was half cheerful” (only one ‘was’ required,) “on his far cap” (fur cap,) “a fool for joining” (‘a fool for joining’ makes the better sense,) “‘the way you let the Unkerlanters overextended themselves’” (‘overextend themselves’,) “‘for which I think him’” (thank him,) “as matter approached a climax” (as matters approached.) “‘They have way to make sure’” (They have ways to.) “Captain Turpino had” (Captain Turpino said,) “from one soldiers to the other” (from one soldier to,) “almost ever day” (every day,) “alarm in his an voice” (alarm in his voice,) “as ready as he had served” (as readily as he had served,) “‘We’re all fighting it, irregardless of whether’” (Okay, it was in dialogue but it should still be ‘fighting it, regardless of…)  “He knees and ankles creaked” (His knees and ankles,) Sirdoc (elsewhere, Sidroc.) “Without them, every footsoldiers would have” (every footsoldier,) “screened him away from” (screened him off from,) “where Vatran still stat” (still sat.) “One after another the wing commander promised to obey” (the wing commanders,)  “for politeness’ sake” (politeness’s sake,) “for not better reason than” (for no better reason than,) no opening quote mark at the beginning of a section which started with a piece of direct speech (I believe that is some sort of convention but it irritates me.) “The didn’t glitter so brilliantly” (They didn’t glitter.) “Szonyi’s waved encompassed” (Szonyi’s wave.) “It is probably that no one but ourselves” (It is probable that…) “those who would soon have lived under puppet king” (who would sooner have lived,) Talsu remembers eating mutton with Kugu (it was with a constabulary captain, not Kugu,) “for more women were less dangerous than most men” (‘for most women were …’ is a more natural construction,) a line consisting of only two words – ‘forestall’ and ‘such’ – separated by the width of the page.) “Her eye’s sparkled” (Her eyes sparkled,) “my mistress’ support” (my mistress’s support,) “in no certain terms” (in no uncertain terms makes more sense,) lese majesty (lèse-majesté,) “his boss’ legitimate books” (his boss’s.)

You may have noticed on my sidebar the cover of The Hamlet by Joanna Corrance. This is the latest book sent to me by ParSec magazine for review.

Corrance is a Scottish writer, based in the Highlands, but I have not read any of her work before.

The Hamlet is short, being novella length. It shouldn’t take me long. To read that is.

Solaris, 2023, 339 p.   Reviewed for ParSec 12.

This is a collection of fiction of mostly fantasy stories, perhaps in keeping with Nordic traditions but there is a sprinkling of Science Fiction. They are split almost equally between translations and stories which first appeared in English, though they do contain a surprising number of Scottish terms. None of them would appear out of place in any speculative fiction anthology though, in most, character or place names display their provenance.

The book’s contents are ordered by the authors’ countries of origin.

Sweden:

She by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargy from the Swedish, Hon, has an epigram from Nathan Wahlqvist to the effect that “a haunting is dependent on a series of highly unlikely coincidences,” and so inherently rare. This tale of the haunting of a house newly built on the site of an older one relies on the facts that the owners, a couple trying to embark on parenthood, sourced its materials on the cheap and the grandfather of one of them had done wrong in the past.

Lost and Found by Maria Haskins, translated from the original, Vindspår, by the author tells of the mental disintegration of the survivor of a crashed escape pod from a ship surveying exoplanets for possible terraforming. Or was there really something out there?

Sing by Karen Tidbeck is set on a planet whose human inhabitants are strangely affected by the rising and setting of the system’s moons. Most can sing when a particular moon is up but our narrator can’t. She is also physically impaired and hence not fully part of the society. A visitor finds the planet’s parasitic ecosystem strange and is shocked by the method through which the singing is acquired.

Denmark:

The False Fisherman by Kaspar Colling Nielsen, translated from the Danish Den falske fisher by Olivia Lasky, concerns a man who did not take up fishing till he was over forty but nevertheless gets himself all the correct gear. He never catches anything (apart from one whopper.) This story could quite easily be read as having no speculative content at all – except for perhaps one sentence.

Heather Country by Jakob Drud is set in a world after what is always referred to as the impact, in a Jutland run by the NeuroClan a pair of whose investigators (both mortgaged to the Clan’s system of debt of body parts) stumble across a threat to the production of fuel from the local genetically modified heather.

The Traveller Girl by Lene Kaaberbøl, translated from the original, Rakkerstøsen, by the author, again has only a tangential relationship to the speculative. A man hoping to inherit land by marrying the landowner’s daughter is startled by the humanity he finds in the gypsy girl he encounters one day. Her group comes there so that their horses’ foals may be born on land that confers on them strength, sturdiness and speed.

The Faroe Islands:

The Abyss by Rakel Helmsdahl, translated from the Faroese, Dýpið, by Marita Thomsen, as a story, seems to be a metaphor for Limbo as our narrator climbs up and down and traverses across a never-ending series of iron bars too rigid and close-set to pass through, before deciding to fall into the abyss of the title and further adventures.

Iceland:

The Dreamgiver by Johann Thorsson. A child’s nightmares are relieved by a dreamcatcher hung up by her bedroom door. One night when our narrator, the child’s mother, carries out the daily task of emptying it she is startled by the Dreamgiver, who is not best pleased that his dreams are being discarded.

Hamraborg Babylon by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmson. Translated from the Icelandic Sódóma Hamraborg by Quentin Bates.

This Hamraborg is a tower dominating its city, Kópavogur. A woman penetrates its nightmarish depths in search of her brother. The story doesn’t quite deliver on the promise of its first two pages.

Norway:

As You Wish by Tor Åge Bringsværd. Translated from the Norwegian Som du Vil by Olivia Lasky. Brageson works in Mine-Blue 4 on the planet Nova Thule where the company provides all its workers with an idunn. Created from local crystalline sources these are not-quite-android simulacra of women with a highly developed sense of imitation. Their signature question is, “How do you want me?” –  a question which haunts Brageson as he struggles to accept his idunn’s presence in his life.

The Cormorant by Tone Almhell has more than a few similarities to Scottish Folk Tales. Not surprising really, given the same harsh northern climate, the salience of fishing as a means of earning a living and the overbearing presence of the sea. The story sets its stall out early when the narrator says she is a cormorant and if she spreads out her wings death will follow. She has been brought up without her father, who had mysterious origins anyway, and lives with her secretive mother on an island across a stretch of sea from the town of Grip. The townspeople view both her and her mother with suspicion. Possibly with good reason.

The Day Jonas Shadowed His Dad by Thore Hansen. Translated by Olivia Lasky. Jonas, whose mother has died, is intrigued by the vagueness with which his father describes his work, so decides one day to follow him. In a cottage in the woods he descends into a tunnel which leads to somewhere brighter and, to Jonas, more intriguing. Overall, though, this is a little underwhelming to regular readers of SF and Fantasy.

A Lion Roars in Longyearbyen by Margrét Helgadóttir. Global warming and migration have led to Longyearbyen becoming a destination city for its December light festival. One of the (unheard number of two) lions in its zoo – thought to be the last actually born in the wild – has gone from its cage. In the midwinter darkness a human hunter preparess to stalk it.

Finland:

A Bird Does Not Sing Because It Has an Answer by Johanna Sinisalo. A human monitors an extremely slow moving avatar suit overseeing the nesting site of a pair of (by now incredibly rare) flycatchers while not being supposed to intervene in natural processes. In the meantime, Central’s coordinating AI is decoding the meanings of birdsong. The story’s last word is devastatingly apposite.

Elegy for a Young Elk by Hannu Rajaniemi. In a world where most humans have disappeared into some sort of upload heaven, once and would-be poet Kosonen roams the woods with his talking bear Otso. Both like booze. He is visited by an avatar of his former wife who wants him to retrieve an object which fell into a firewalled city dominated by plague gods. Their lost son also happens to be in there.

The Wings that Slice the Sky by Emmi Itäranta. Translated from the Finnish Taivasta silpovat sivet by the author. Judging by the Author’s Note this seems to be a take on the Finnish epic Kalevala. Louhi, a woman with magical powers, marries into the well to do family which lives in Pohjola in the north. One day she rescues a shipwrecked man from the south and nurses him back to health. In return for a horse to take him back south she asks for a Sampo, a device which will ensure Pohjola will never again want for anything. The bargain is also to include one of her daughters. He sends a blacksmith to forge the Sampo but he in turn spreads the fact of Pohjola’s existence and soon many visitors arrive. Men being men – even (especially?) with magical powers – things don’t end well.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- some of the translations are into USian. Otherwise; Fin (Finn.) “None of these alternatives were appealing” (‘None …. was appealing’ and, strictly, there can be only two alternatives, not three,) “hockey cards” (being set in Sweden these would more likely be ‘ice hockey cards’,) Janosz’ (Janosz’s,) laying (x 2, lying,) “a wee bit of sarcasm” (a wee bit? The author must have spent time in Scotland.) “None of them were armed” (None … was armed.) “The only movement along its streets were those of plastic bags and battered tin cans” (The only movement … was …,) “to such a prophesy” (prophecy,) smothes (smooths,) Douglas’ (Douglas’s,) “the less electromagnetic emissions the better” (the fewer … emissions the better.) “She sat down …and swung its legs” (either, ‘It sat down …and swung its legs’ or, She sat down …and swung her legs’,) sprung (sprang.)

Vintage, 2005, 242 p, plus xii p Introduction by Susan Sontag. Translated from the Icelandic Kristnihald Undir Jökli (Helgafell, Reykjavík, 1968) by Magnus Magnusson. First published in English as Christianity at Glacier (Helgafell, Reykjavík, 1972.)

In her introduction – which, as is usually the best approach with them, ought to be left until after reading the text – Susan Sontag states that novels that proceed largely through dialogue, or are relentlessly jocular or didactic, those whose characters do little but muse to themselves or debate with someone else, or are initiated into secret knowledge, those with characters having supernatural qualities or contain imaginary geography are – despite the long history of the picaresque tale and the many classic stories which exemplify these things – considered innovative, ultra-literary or bizarre, and are given labels to signify their outlier status

Science fiction

Tale, fable, allegory

Philosophical novel

Dream novel

Visionary novel

Literature of fantasy

Wisdom lit

Spoof

Sexual turn-on

and that “convention dictates we slot many of the last centuries’ perdurable literary achievements into one or another of them.” She concludes that thought with, “The only novel I know that fits into all of them is Under the Glacier.”

Our unnamed narrator has been tasked by the Bishop of Reykjavík to journey to the Snæfells glacier to investigate the situation there, where the local pastor Jón Jónsson, known as Prímus (he fixes stoves,) has taken no salary for twenty years. There are rumours the church has been boarded up, the pastor is living with a woman not his wife and he has allowed a corpse to be interred in the glacier.

This is the same glacier to which Jules Verne sent his adventurers under the influence of Árni Saknússemm and the leadership of Professor Lidenbrock to start their journey to the centre of the Earth. Laxness implicitly critiques Verne’s piece of cultural appropriation. The locals at Snæfells do consider the spot to be the world’s centre and have little consideration for the outside world.

The text is in the form of the emissary’s report and during it he only ever refers to himself as the undersigned or the Emissary of the Bishop, soon shortened to Embi. Dialogue is laid out as if in the text of a play and without punctuation otherwise.

Embi, the undersigned, is confused by life at Snæfells. None of his interlocutors seems to give him a straight answer, they talk to him as if he is the bishop and generally are only obliquely forthcoming.

His attitude is that, “‘I was just sent here like any other ass to make inquiries about things that don’t concern me at all and that I don’t care about at all.’”

There is a fair amount of philosophising. A shepherd called Saknússemm II tells Embi, “Of all the creatures that man kills for his amusement there is only one that he kills out of hatred – other men. Man hates nothing so much as himself.”

Pastor Jón says, “‘History is always entirely different to what has happened….. The greater the care with which you explain a fact, the more nonsensical a fable you fish out of the chaos….. The difference between a novelist and a historian is this: that the former tells lies deliberately and for the fun of it; the historian tells lies in his simplicity and imagines he is telling the truth.’”

Dr Godman Sýngmann has a robust take on religion, “‘The Christians without ceremony stole from the Jews their national literature and added to it a piece of Greek overtime work they call the New Testament, which is mostly a distortion of the Old Testament, and, what’s more, an anti-Semitic book. My motto is, leave the Jews alone. Those who deck themselves out in stolen gods are not viable.’”

Embi is particularly baffled by the information that Sýngmann (when he dies) has four widows but was not a bigamist.

In a diversion on skuas the narrator indulges in a little meta-textual teasing. “All birds fly better than aeroplanes if they can fly at all. All birds are perhaps a little wrong, because an absolute once-and-for-all formula for a bird has never been found, just as all novels are bad because the correct formula for a novel has never been found.”

At one point we are told that Prince Polo biscuits are the only gastronomical delicacy that Icelanders have allowed themselves since they became a wealthy nation.

A woman named Úa, who may be the pastor’s wife (or may not,) turns up. She has travelled the world and is of the opinion that “‘Americans are children. Children believe in guns and gunmen. One hundred forty-seven gunshots in children’s television a week. In children’s films there have to be child murders.’” She spends her time knitting sea-mittens as she thinks the world requires them.

She also says, “‘In our society the rules about love are made either by castrated men or impotent greybeards who lived in caves and ate moss-campion roots.’”

Under the Glacier has no plot as such, the concepts discussed within it are sometimes abstruse, the conclusion is illusory.

It is utterly memorable.

Pedant’s corner:- In her Introduction Susan Sontag slightly mischaracterises Science Fiction as always featuring a male protagonist. That is certainly no longer true and wasn’t in 2004 when she wrote it. Dr Godman Syngmann (in the text it’s Sýngmann,) La Vie de Henry Brulard (it’s La Vie de Henri Brulard.) Otherwise; “All birds are perhaps a little wrong” (All birds is perhaps a little wrong?)

Polygon, 2022, 112 p

On a cold December night in Edinburgh in 1591 Geillis Duncan awaits execution in the morning for the crime of witchcraft. She is visited in spirit by Iris, a woman from our own time, who calls herself a time traveller and a modern-day witch.

Historically 1591 was the height of the hysteria against witches encapsulated by James VI’s Daemonologie and Geillis Duncan was one of the victims of the North Berwick witch trials.

The scenario gives Fagan the platform to outline the misogyny behind the witch hunts and its prevalence today.

In the conversations between Geillis and Iris the question arises, “How does he” (the King) “fight the Devil?” The answer? “Via teenage girls. Doesn’t everyone?” The rationale back then being, “We go after the Devil via womb-bearers – they are weak for him.” So the targets were women. Women who were alone, or tall, or ugly, or smart; women who inherited, sassy women, women who were healers. If a woman doesn’t exalt men always she is a threat, “a Demon whore, a witch.”

Despite all her efforts to be polite, docile and unthreatening, not to draw attention to herself, still Geillis was picked on: primarily since she was handy, a servant in the household of a man called Seaton but also suspect because, “I helped women birth, I helped calves, I knew the right herbs to cure a headache.” Seaton was jealous of the fact that his sister-in-law, Euphame, had inherited her father’s estate and wanted a legal reason to eliminate her so Geillis was tortured and abused to implicate Euphame and others.

Fagan has her characters try to explain misogyny. Geillis says, “We bring life from our bodies where before there was nothing,” – that being a kind of magic – and Iris tells her, “Men want to know how they got trapped on Earth,” but the real crime is that, “There is no man on this Earth who didn’t get here except by a woman parting her thighs.”

Apart from the conceit of Iris time travelling Fagan’s tendency to indulge the fantastical sees Iris during the night begin to grow feathers and eventually turn into a crow.

Though Geillis’s prior suffering is never in doubt the set up allows Fagan to treat the witch trials almost indirectly but nevertheless underline that misogyny is ever with us.

This is another of Birlinn’s Darkland Tales (see here) and again was borrowed from the local library by the good lady.

Pedant’s corner:- lightening (lightning,) “filed into a tea-room” (in 1591?) “the thing I had that shined” (shone,) a priest comes to hear her confess at the last (a priest? In Reformation Scotland?) the priest uses a pencil to sign in to the jail (suitable graphite for this purpose was discovered in 1560 so it’s possible; but pencils as such would not, I suspect, have been widely available, a scratchy pen is more likely,) smoothes (smooths,) okay (in 1591?) ditto teenage.