Hodder, 2019, 292 p.

Roanhorse is something of a rarity as an SF author. She may not be the first writer of Native American heritage to write SF and Fantasy but I confess if she isn’t I can’t recall reading any others. That heritage infuses Trail of Lightning, the first in a series of tales.

Narrator Maggie Hoskie is a Navajo, or Diné as they call themselves. Their former reservation is now a bastion against an outside world devastated by an environmental catastrophe referred to as the Big Water. Known to its inhabitants as Dinétah, the Diné’s land is protected by a Wall and there are few incomers. Despite the outer world being largely drowned, Dinétah is suffering from a prolonged drought. Water is one of the many scarcities, coffee an almost impossible luxury.

We first meet Maggie when her help is enlisted by a family whose daughter has been abducted by a monster. Somewhat reluctantly, Maggie, who has what the book calls clan powers – one of hers is to be taken over at times of stress by K’aahanáanii, a source of speed in movement, liable to be useful in a fight – takes on the task of finding the abducted girl. She reaches her too late, though, as she has already been infected by the monster and cannot be returned to her parents intact. The killings of the monster and the girl are only the first of many in the book.

Maggie’s training in the ways of her powers had been undertaken by a man called Neizghání, said to be an immortal (as opposed to the ‘five-fingered’ normal humans.) Maggie may still be in love with him. She is certainly tormented by his disappearance after an earlier incident.

Maggie’s only other friend, a medicine man called Tah, introduces her to his grandson, Kai Arviso, (who is Big Medicine, with healing powers – and silvery eyes.) Reluctantly Maggie takes him along on her quest to defeat the monsters and find Neizghání. Along the way we are treated to what is in effect a supercharged cage fight – to the death.

One of the story’s fantastical apparitions, Coyote, is a familiar figure in Native American folklore. He met Maggie, “before the end of the Fifth World, when my kind still lived mostly in the dreams of the five-fingered people,” and persists in annoying her by calling her Magdalena. Always dressed like one of those be-suited gents in cowboy films, Coyote is one of the book’s more intriguing, if elusive, characters but his interest in Maggie is for purposes of his own.

Some authorial hand-waving is evident when Coyote, also known to the Diné as Ma’ii, at one point says, “This last flood, the one you call the Big Water, ended the Fifth World and began the Sixth. It opened the passage for those like myself to return to the world.” Any rationale for monsters and clan powers is otherwise absent but it is The Sixth World which gives Roanhorse’s sequence of novels its overall title.

While the Native American background makes for an unusual and welcome twist on the norm of SF and fantasy the novel’s apparent relish in weaponry and killing is more by the book and sadly typical of many practitioners of the form.

Roanhorse can write though and, relish in weaponry aside, Maggie is an engaging enough narrator.

Pedant’s corner:- there were several instances of the formulation “time interval” later. Othewise; a missing comma before a piece of direct speech (many times,) “that soak up the hot” (the heat,) “the evil deeds every man and woman leaves behind” (leave.) “All that ugly, the sickness, the loss and unhappiness” (is missing a noun after ugly it would seem.) “Viscera pools at his feet” (viscera pool,) “it will portent something bad” (portent is a noun, the verb is portend.) “His smiles fades” (fade,) diced chiles (chilis,) later we had ‘chilé’ (again, chili.) “None of them even look back” (None of them even looks back,) “and set in on the bar” (set it on the bar,) chamisa (chamiso.)

TTA Press, 96 p.

Joanna Berry takes over the guest editor role and asks how much of themselves players take into decision making when playing video games. Andy Hedgecock’s Future Interrupted^a makes a plea for stories to tackle the threats of the subtle and pervasive surveillance and tracking technologies rampant in the modern world. In Climbing Stories Aliya Whiteley seeks solace from the news in films. Speedy Sci-Fi adventure won’t do but conspiracy thrillers will. She now wants to go back to the source books. In Book Zone I review Rokurō Inui’s Automatic Eve and Wole Talabi’s Incomplete Solutions welcoming both, Val Nolan^b finds Duncan Lunan’s collection of stories and articles From the Moon to the Stars too fond of “rigorous maths” and primarily of interest to those who enjoyed them at time they were written, Maureen Kincaid Speller engages in hand-to-hand fighting with concepts of language and meaning in the ‘very strange’ novel Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko but concludes that is only a good thing, Jo L Walton^c heartily recommends The New Voices of Science Fiction edited by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman, though thinks some of the stories might be a bit too polished, Graham Sleight appreciates the quality of Ted Chiang’s stories in Exhalation (and Chiang’s previous collection) as being worth the price of their scarcity, Stephen Theaker praises the “grown-up, fiercely feminist” The Sea Inside Me by Sarah Dobbs, warns against the cover and blurb of Earwig by B Catling though he recommends it to “some readers” and says Stephen Palmer’s collection Tales from the Spired Inn is pretty much the ideal small press SF title, Ian Hunter^d laments the passing of Dianne Wynne Jones as he considers her Poems while Duncan Lunan discusses the history of Dyson spheres in SF as his take on the stories in Around Alien Stars by G David Nordley.

As to the fiction;
In The Kindest God is Light by Joanna Berry a poet is engaged to provide an embodiment of humanity – warts and all – to aliens. Typographically unusual in that it involves a lot of glossed over (crossed out) inner thoughts.
She and I and We¹ by Timothy Mudie is a time travel story. Poet (yes, another one) Nathaly Evariste is stalked by someone from the future who says she has come back to save her from being killed. This is no All You Zombies… or even By His Bootstraps but there’s a neat twist to the ending.
Dent-De-Lion² by Natalia Theodorou is set on a planet to where Thomae has been sent to find a silicon plant-based cure for an endemic sickness back home. She finds it – and more.
In Parasite Art³ by David Tallerman our narrator is an artist who has gone to the planet of Culcifa to find one of the Zobe, an alien race which has appeared there and can merge with people who can then experience the Zobe’s dreams.
The Duchess of Drink Street⁴ by Tim Chawaga on its surface charts the relationship between a cupcake seller on the eponymous street and the food reviewer who damns those cupcakes with one word, inauthentic. With a globally flooded background featuring floating cities it is about fads, gentrification and its reverse and the elusiveness of memory.
Against a background of the end of the world in which the rich are sending samples of their hair skin and semen into space to save the species, Dream of the High Mountain⁵ by Daniel Bennett relates the experience of a poet (yes, a poet again) who goes on a retreat.

Pedant’s corner:- ^aCastells’ (Castells’s,) Aldiss’ (Aldiss’s.) ^b“are a series” (is a series.) ^c“None of the stories feel out of place” (None feels,) hijinks (high jinks.) “Much as I stan Luce, social and economic consequences of technological developments are never inevitable” (???) ^dJones’ (Jones’s,)
¹Written in USian, “neither of you react” (neither … reacts.) ²Written in USian. ³“soon be discarded” (soon to be discarded,) “she must recognise as her and I” (as her and me.) “Conceivably we were one of its ancestors. Seeing it, my muscle memory recalls what it’s like to make those spasmodic movements” (‘descendants’ for ‘ancestors’ is the only way to make sense of this, and it would be ancestral rather than muscle memory,) canvasses (canvases?) ⁴Written in USian, at first I read ‘chicest part of the city’ as a misprint for ‘choicest’, but they’re much the same in meaning. “The difference in textures … work well together” (the difference works well,) “New Lagos’ greed” (New Lagos’s.) ⁵“‘This the survival of’” (This is the survival.) “Upon the fourth floor” (Either, ‘On the fourth floor,’ or, ‘Up on the fourth floor’,) “inside of him” (inside him, no need for an ‘of’.) “His group were among the last” (his group was among the last.)

Women’s Press SF, 1988, 150 p

All over the world women are turning into animals and animals into women. The narrative focuses on the adventures of Pooch, a dog turned woman, who has a yearning for opera and a pure singing voice. (She briefly thinks of calling herself Pucci.) Her particular interest is Carmen, hence the book’s title.

The men in this scenario are non-plussed by the changes, seeking either to deny or exploit it. (And their carnal desires are never very far away.) Chapter headings are quotes from the likes of Nietzsche, Apuleius and Marcus Aurelius and the text has embedded references such as, “stare at each other with wild surmises.”

It’s all gloriously over-the-top but at the same time an oblique look at gender relations in the 1980s. In particular, one gent has come to the belief “that motherhood should be dealt out, even to infants, in small insignificant doses so that it can be held within reasonable bounds.”

Pedant’s corner:- “that moves her mosts of all” (most of all,) sharks teeth (sharks’ teeth,) concensus (consensus,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech. “None of the others return” (none returns,) “107s is” (it was a possessive, 107’s,) “‘I know its doesn’t match’” (it,) “if worse should come to worst” (the phrase is ‘if the worst should come to the worst,’ as was employed elsewhere,) “none of them come at all” (none … comes,) “will surely be one of the last, if not the last, building to fall” (one of the last … buildings to fall,) “like three phoenix” (phoenixes or phoenices,) nowdays (nowadays.)

Ace, 1971, 222 p.

The Peregrine of the title is the bastard son of a king, sent out on his own as he approaches manhood. The setting is in the declining years of the Roman Empire, an age of petty kingdoms and the burgeoning of Christianity as a Europe-wide religion. In this respect Peregrine is a heathen still, as was his father.

Davidson adopts a joky, referential, allusive style – with cod Roman numbers (VVVXXXCCCIII) and embedded quotations, “wine-dark sea,” “they looked at each other … with a wild surmise,” “minding the stoa,” “confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks,” – as his hero, along with page Dafty and mage Appledorus, goes out into the world partly in search of his elder brother Austin (also one of the King’s by-blows.) Along the way Peregrine falls into the company of Hun Horde Seventeen. You get the drift.

Peregrine, as his name suggests, is a traveller: not only that, but also, when fantasy bleeds into Davidson’s tale, at times a falcon.

This is not a novel to be taken very seriously. It’s a jeu d’esprit on Davidson’s part but passes the time well enough. I note that once again he employs the word wee to mean small. There’s Scots ancestry there somewhere.

Pedant’s corner:- “he had seen nought but” (‘nought’ means ‘zero’, it does not mean ‘nothing’. That would be ‘naught’.) “Gee” (an unlikely expletive for someone from a non-Christian culture, also an anachronism given the setting, but then we also had ‘mom’ and other twentieth century USianisms,) wisant (wisent,) “was still damp and a smelled briny” (no need for the ‘a’,) talley (tally, though always used in the plural so ‘tallies’,) a missing end quotation mark, boney (bony,) Sextuagesima (I’ve heard of Sexagesima and Septuagesima but not Sextuagesima. Davidson may have been signalling the speaker’s ignorance here,) cameleopard (usually camelopard,) coöperation (plus points for that diæresis,) “‘I didn’t use to wonder’” (I didn’t used to wonder,) “several battery of snores” (several batteries,) revery (usually reverie,) “lay of the land” (it’s lie, lie of the land.) “The Hun digested his slowly.” (The Hun digested this slowly,) Philozena (elsewhere always Philoxena,) “‘it’s an ideal was to get conversation started’” (ideal way,) abhore (abhor,) highoffice (high office,) apothegms (apophthegms,) asofoetida (asafoetida or, better, asofœtida,) “the congregation were delighted” (the congregation was delighted,) miniscules (minuscule,) “he had born hither” (borne hither.) “‘And where do you think to do?’” (And where do you think to go?)

The latest Interzone (no 285, Jan – Feb 2020) popped onto my doormat this morning.

As well as the usual fiction and features this one contains my reviews of Aliya Whiteley’s Skein Island and Ian McDonald’s The Menace From Farside.

I am expecting a couple of books for review in Interzone 286 through the post any day now.

The New Curiosity Shop, 2018.

In Pull up a Log^a Noel Chidwick says that the tradition and sense of myth in Scottish story-telling underlies Shoreline of Infinity, tales of wonder told round the fire as the cold swirls around, and invites us in. Reviews^b has Katy Lennon finding the worlds depicted in the anthology Improbable Botany edited by Gary Dalkin feeling “real and conscious”, Samantha Dolan is impressed by Cat Hellisen’s collection Learning How to Drown, Steve Ironside appreciates rather than enjoys the lampoon The Church of Latter-Day Eugenics by Chris Kelso and Tom Bradley, but still tilts his crown to it, Rachel Hill finds Autonomous by Annalee Newitz to be an accomplished thriller, tackling thorny contemporary issues without offering simple solutions, Callum McSorley welcomes us to the Wild East of the collected novellas of Apocalypse Nyx by Kameron Hurley, formula plotting and all, Marija Smits says Sealed by Naomi Booth is a powerful book with an original, hard-hitting premise, Lucy Powell describes The Freeze-Frame Revolution as hard and fast-paced narrative that really makes you think, gripping till the last page, Georgina Merry defines Fifty-One by Chris Barnham as a fun read – with flaws.
Multiverse has poems by Tris Crest^d, Charlotte Ozment and Nate Maxson, while a total of three 6 word stories (written respectively by Gregg Chamberlain, Dane Divine and Michael Stroh) appear, one each, at the bottoms of pages 44, 71 and 131.

In the fiction:-
Harry’s Shiver* by Esme Carpenter. A man commissioned to steal some sort of (unspecified) valuable raids the ‘unbreachable’ Caste Arco. To aid him he makes use of devices he calls Shivers. I’m afraid for me this story was marred by far too much obtrusive info dumping, some unnecessary phrases, the occasional odd word choice and more than a smattering of cliché.

In The Time Between Time*² by Premee Mohamed windows onto another planet have begun appearing all over Earth. Eleven year-old Dalton finds one in her back garden and tries to keep it secret.

Daughter³ by Laura Young is narrated by a woman taking her terminally ill mother from Japan to her home in San Francisco to care for her. Things turn strange during the flight and even stranger when they land.

Splitting Up*⁴ by Bo Balder is narrated by a Split – a part of someone’s personality which by medical intervention has been reduced to only restricted access to that person’s body but takes over for designated purposes – in this case interacting/having sex with a boyfriend.

In Goodnight Rosemarinus⁵ by Caroline Grebell a future human, evolved into a sea-dweller, is held captive by an alien Observer. This story is followed by a one page article “We Have a Winner”^d on the artist, Jimmy McGregor, who won the competition to illustrate the story.

Tim Major’s Cast in the Same Mould* describes the peculiar circumstances in which life is discovered on Mars.

The Beachcomber Presents Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein⁶ by Mark Toner, Stephen Pickering & Tsu Beel discusses Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the original and its various adulterated adaptations.

Next comes an interview with the author^e (conducted by Noel Chidwick) and extracts from the novel Origamy⁷ by Rachel Armstrong.

Preceded by a very short author intervew^f (by Chris Kelso,) The Silk Tower of Beijing⁸ by Preston Grassman is dedicated to the late Iain M Banks. Seeming to take inspiration from that author’s A Gift From the Culture an inhabitant of an Earth taken over by aliens strikes at the core of their hold over humans

Pedant’s corner:- I proofread the stories marked* before publication so assume there are no remaining errata there. Otherwise; ^aHanks’ (Hanks’s.) ^b“made up of diverse range” (made up of a diverse range,) pays of (pays off,) “an authors motivation” (author’s,) “each … aren’t window dressing” (each isn’t,) “this editions extra interview material” (edition’s,) “the majority of the public are unconcerned” (the majority … is unconcerned,) Watts’ (Watts’s,) eons (aeons,) “the inherently claustrophobia nature” (the inherently claustrophobic nature,) “where the human’s sleep” (humans,) “the twists and turns … is at times genuinely shocking” (are genuinely shocking,) “the ultimate climax of the book and the afterword to is one that is” (that ‘and’ requires a plural verb, ‘are ones that are’,) “one could be forgiven into thinking they were reading sections” (again, ‘one’ is a singular antecedent and should not be followed by a plural pronoun,) “the group split” (splits.) ^cIn the author blurb “bird nests” (normally ‘birds’ nests’.) ^dfocussed (focused.) ^eMobius’ (Mobius’s.) ^f“the nations arts” (nation’s,) skillful (skilful,) Ian M Banks (x2, Iain,) Banks’ (Banks’s.)
¹Written in USian. ²Written in USian. Or is it Canadian? Instantly dated by its mention of Stephen Hawking. ³Written in USian. ⁴ Written in USian. “The uited people” (The suited people.) ⁵focussed (focused.) ⁶“ice flow” (ice floe that would be,) “whom in turn draughts it” (who in turn drafts it,) “as Victor grew as did his love for Science” (as Victor grew so did his love for..) Victors’ (Victor’s,) “evidence there of” (thereof,) Victor breaths his last” (breathes his last,) “There’s very few movies” (there are very few movies,) “near all of” (nearly all of.) ⁷haurspicy (haruspicy,) auger (after the previous page’s mention of four types of divination I strongly suggest this is intended to be ‘augur’. An auger is a different thing entirely.) ⁸Written in USian, “a flock of drone-birds hover” (a flock hovers,) a missing full stop (x 4.) “The cross-hatched ruins of the Bird’s Nest appears” (the .. ruins… appear,) “none of them are as monumental” (none .. is as monumental.) “As I think of the world as I want to be” (‘as I want it to be’ makes more sense.)

Sad, sad news.

Alasdair Gray has died.

If he had never done anything else in his life his first novel Lanark (arguably four novels) would have made him the most important Scottish writer of the twentieth century’s latter half, if not the whole century. (Perhaps only Lewis Grassic Gibbon rivals him in that respect.)

But of course he published 8 more novels, the last of which I read in 2009, 4 books of short stories – see this review of one of them – 3 of poetry (I reviewed a couple here and here,) many pieces for theatre, radio and television plus books of criticism (as here) and commentary (eg see here).

Yet that was not the least of it. There is also his work as an artist and illustrator to take into account. His drawing/painting style was unique and uniquely recognisable; much admired and sought after.

A polymath and curmudgeon, learned and contrary, Gray was one of a kind.

Even as his work lives on we will miss his acerbic presence.

And I still have his The Book of Prefaces to peruse.

Alasdair Gray: 28/12/1934 – 29/12/2019. So it goes.

Grafton, 1992, 219 p.

These are the adventures of Alaric the minstrel, a foundling discovered on a wooded hillside with a severed hand clutching his leg. Taken in by a childless couple desperate for someone to care for he later is befriended by a minstrel called Dall who recognises his unusual ability – liable to be described by the society they live in as witchcraft. Alaric has the power of self-teleportation – handy for extricating himself from dodgy situations but a dangerous attribute.

In his wanderings after Dall’s death he comes to a castle where the local princess takes a fancy to him. Their liaison uncovered he has to flee precipitately but cannot forget her. Eventually he meets a former midwife with a strange tale to tell. She has only one hand. Cut off when a child she had just delivered disappeared along with it and banned from her home kingdom for failing to take proper care of her charge. Through her he comes to his ancestral home and finds a family he didn’t know he had (all of whom have his ability – but it must be kept secret.)

Born to Exile is a pleasant enough read, Alaric is a reasonably engaging protagonist – with a conscience (though the sexual politics of his world are typical of fantasy novels of this vintage) – and the ending provides scope for a sequel.

Pedant’s corner:- One entry. One only. Remarkable. “He bent her back till they lay prone on the bed” (face down? I think not; supine on the bed perhaps.)

In a previous post I posted about Ian’s first list in response to the BBC’s 100 books that shaped the world.

These are his influencers from the 1980s.

Bold means I have read them. Only 7 out of 24 here.

The Undercover Aliens, (aka The House That Stood Still) AE Van Vogt (1950)
The Winds of Gath, EC Tubb (1967).
The Book of Alien, Paul Scanlon & Michael Gross (1979)
The Dune Encyclopedia, Willis E McNelly, ed. (1984)
The Future Makers, Peter Haining, ed. (1968)
Dhalgren, Samuel R Delany (1975)
The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe (1979)
The Far Pavilions, MM Kaye (1978)
Iceberg, Clive Cussler (1975)
The Complete Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy Lists, Malcolm Edwards & Maxim Jakubowski (1983)
Radix, AA Attanasio (1981)
The Barbie Murders, John Varley (1980)
Serpent’s Reach, CJ Cherryh (1980)
The Science Fiction Sourcebook, David Wingrove (1984)
The War for Eternity, Christopher Rowley (1983)
Under a Calculating Star, John Morressy (1975)
Where Time Winds Blow, Robert Holdstock (1981)
Knight Moves, Walter Jon Williams (1985)
Kairos, Gwyneth Jones (1988)
The Space Mavericks, Michael Kring (1980)
The Female Man, Joanna Russ (1975)
The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe (1972)
The Five Gold Bands, Jack Vance (1950)
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin (1969)

Solaris, 2019, 405 p.

The novel starts with a scene in which parakeets in London are being systematically culled. They are alien, you see. They don’t belong in Britain. At least not in a Britain run by Prime Minister David Drake, head of the Resurrection Party, out to restore the country to “proper” British values and rid it of all undesirables. This last category, of course, includes anyone not born in the UK. Ajia Snell’s mother has been deported “back” to India – a country she had never visited. Bicycle courier Ajia’s father was white British, and therefore she is tolerated. Just. Her dusky skin tends to attract suspicion in certain quarters though. When out on her self-imposed mission to paint graffiti criticising Drake, she is spotted by cops and shot while trying to escape them. This leads to her capture, imprisonment and beating. Her heart stops.

It is of no consequence. The police can do anything they like in this law-and–ordered world. Two cops are delegated to dispose of the body. While they are dumping her in a sewer she wakes up, frightening them off.

Resting on a park bench, she is saved from a further beating at the hands of a vagrant by a man calling himself Smith. He calls her “good fellow” and tells her she is one of a new kind, people who did indeed die but have somehow come back to life with special attributes, attributes drawn from British mythological figures and folk tales. She is Puck, aka Robin Goodfellow, and has the ability to move at incredible speed. Smith is able to rework broken metal and shattered glass into new objects.

Nominative determinism is a central feature of the reincarnations in this book, who are known collectively as eidolons. Their leader is called Auberon LeRoy. A man named Fletcher is extremely handy with a bow and arrow, Daisy Hawthorn has power over growing things, Wee Paul Klein can diminish in size, Neve Winterton has the ability to freeze and unfreeze things. In order to save the soul of Britain they and their like are set to do battle against the armoured cars and Humvees of Drake’s security force, the Paladins.

Interspersed with the story of Ajia Snell (both of whose names mean speed) we are given the experiences of Drake, his wife Harriet, and Security Chief Major Dominic Wynne. In their telling I found these scenes to be reminiscent of the fiction of Harry Turtledove. Before entering politics Drake had been a successful businessman and collector of religious artefacts. He believes himself to be a devout Christian (in his youth a hard row to hoe, in his opinion) but his actions belie any tenets of that faith beyond those of the Old Testament fundamentalist types who seem able to ignore totally any (all?) of the compassionate things that their Messiah is reported to have said and encouraged. Drake’s prize possession is the Holy Grail. Returning to Britain after purchasing it abroad, his helicopter had crashed, with Drake the sole survivor. It is kept under lock and key in a secure building in the grounds of his family home. Not only does he talk to it, it talks back to him in the voice of his companion on that trip, Emrys Sage.

I note there is no mention of the Monarchy in this depiction of a Britain under Fascist rule. An odd omission. Perhaps we are meant to assume it’s been abolished. The implication is that it has been sidelined and of no relevance, certainly no kind of brake on anything.

I suspect Lovegrove intended his tale as a warning of how close the UK is to a future of this sort. Its appeal I suppose lies in the invocation of mythic British heroes and the prospect of the fascist state’s overthrow. However, the treatment suggests that we need to depend on the supernatural to rescue us from such a fate. If that’s the case we’re more lost than I had feared. It’s also depressing that in order to overcome it those heroes have to resort to methods almost indistinguishable from their persecutors. I suppose that was ever the way though.

Pedant’s corner:- Many instances of “‘time interval’ later” throughout. Otherwise; “‘that there was any unnatural about your speed’” (anything unnatural,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, “‘You’re coming with’” (coming with me,) “where an assortment of … were parked” (an assortment … was parked.) “Mr LeRoy helped pored” (helped pour,) “air conditioning kept the temperature steady between 16 and 20⁰C (a 4 degree range is hardly steady,) a pope (a Pope,) “used by the Saint Veronica” (Saints’names are not usually prefixed by the definite article; ‘used by Saint Veronica’,) “there were a number of ikons and Bibles,” (‘there was a number’ or, here, ‘there were numbers of…,) “told you do” (told you to do,) unadvisable (inadvisable,) “that Auberon LeRoy fit the bill” (fitted the bill.) “A trio of Paladins were zeroing in” (A trio … was zeroing in,) “skidded into the life” (into life.) “Mr Le Roy sai without looking round” (Mr LeRoy said..,) “of out both politeness and deference” (out of both,) jpeg (x3, it was a video file, I believe that’s an mpeg, or a gif,) “his his great shoulders” (only one ‘his’ required,) lay low (lie low,) “for another women” (woman.) “The armoured slowed” (armoured truck slowed,) “said to much” (too much,) travelling into the troop-carrier” (in the troop-carrier,) “the tongue-lashing he’d excepted” (expected,) “an elicit thrill” (illicit thrill, this was used correctly later, as was elicit,) “was quite bit older” (quite a bit older,) “all she owned in the way of acreage were two window boxes” (all she owned … was two window boxes,) “‘but all indications is that’” (all indications are that,) “like steel hawser” (like a steel hawser,) “the onyx, jewel-encrusted cup” (the jewel-encrusted onyx cup,) “over a licking flames” (‘over a licking flame’, or, over licking flames’,) “as if unconscionably” (‘unconsciously’ makes more sense in the context. Unconscionably = ‘without conscience’ rather than ‘without thought’,) “an besuited MC took up the microphone on small stage” (a besuited MC took up the microphone on a small stage,) “Drake’s Paladin’s killed them all” (Paladins.) “‘Add your ability own to ours’” (Add your own ability to ours,) behind the fathering “‘and you’d be alerting the bastards the fact’” (and you’d be alerting the bastards to the fact.) “Smith look up at Fletcher” (looked up.) “Lieutenant Noble raised spoke hurriedly into his lapel mic” (raised what?) “Harriet laid on the bed” (Laid? Laid what? ‘Harriet lay on the bed’,) “pointed to see the town far below” (pointed to the town..,) whiskey (x3, whisky.) “They drove onto town” (on to town, or, into town.) At television stood in the corner” (A television,) “‘to contact President Vasilyev on the morning’” (‘in the morning’ is more usual.) “‘The flashed up a fucking mugshot of me, didn’t they?’” (They flashed up..,) “on Wolfson arm” (Wolfson’s arm,) “raring like a demon” (roaring makes more sense,) “‘the method of murder in Bradford suggest the same perpetrator’” (the method … suggests,) “towards an door” (a door,) “a strong of high-pitched gibberish” (a string,) “and hugged hers shins” (her shins,) “or rather where its head has been” (had been.) “‘On you way.’” (On your way,) “a newsagents” (newsagent’s,) “the creature shrieked and rage” (in rage.) Edward Winterton opened her eyes and smiled sat her” (opened his eyes and smiled at her,) “that had rang out” (that had rung out,) parliament (Parliament,) “in ones and two” (ones and twos,) “aptitude with the weapons” (it’s usually aptitude for, not with, something,) “icy and other creepers” (ivy,) “until such a time” (usually ‘until such time’,) “at the top of their voices” (‘tops of their voices’ is more grammatical,) “the line of a ha-ha diving it from sloping lawns” (dividing it,) “jersey cows” (Jersey cows,) “a small force of Russian insurgents have crossed the border” (a small force … has crossed,) a missing full stop (x2,) “more Paladin” (Paladins,) “opened fire of the castle’s defenders” (on the castle’s defenders.) “The reply was hard to make out about the rattle of gunfire” (above the rattle.) “The study door open and an voice” (door opened and a voice,) “You will seek to form a coalition with Labour and the Liberal Democrats” (Labour and the Liberal Democrats are still around in this scenario? They’ve not been banned?)