Orbit, 2024, 386 p. Reviewed for ParSec 13.

A list of some of the elements with which this novel is sprinkled – an ancient clandestine religious sect, a highly secret Government agency whose existence dates back to Tudor times, the Charge of the Light Brigade, ritual sacrifices, a sword imbued with dark powers, cannibalism – might suggest it leans towards the schlockier end of the fictional spectrum but Pullen’s writing style is far from that. Though at times it does lean into excess at others it even smacks of literary quality.

The book has an enleaved structure. As supposedly written down in 1921, the story of John Sackville, only son of the Earl of Dorset, of his male lover Garrett and their encounters with evil powers, top and tail the book in an epistolary narrative titled The White Baron. Within that, Sackville reads the diary of Dr Samuel Abravanel from September 1876 under the rubric The Red Circle, which itself contains letters from mid-Victorian General Ian Stewart to his wife Clara in a section named The Black Hunger. The settings range in location from that Dorset home to early twentieth century India, Tibet, China and Mongolia before taking in mid-nineteenth century Orkney, the Crimean War and a trip into Ukraine – then under Tsarist Russian rule.

In The White Baron, Sackville writes of his more or less idyllic childhood as the heir to Lord Dalwood and of his homosexual relationship with Garret, the son of one of his father’s tenants, a liaison which they managed to keep undiscovered for over ten years probably because “The privileged classes always give each other the benefit of the doubt.” Through these early pages Pullen leads us into his story slowly. Though in his time at Oxford, when he met Russian Count Evgeni Vorontzoff who is to reappear throughout the tale, he had heard of the Dhaumri Karoti, a shadowy organisation which is to prove to be the disruptor of his life, it is the discovery of Sackville’s homosexual relationship while serving in the diplomatic service in Sikkim that sees him blackmailed into doing the bidding of MI7, the King’s Constabulary of Astrology, Alchemy and Necromancy. “We deal in the defence of the realm against witchcraft, sorcery and black magic.” His task is to penetrate deep into Tibet and Mongolia to retrieve the sword which once belonged to General Stewart and fell into the hands of the Dhaumri Korati when he was taken prisoner by the Russians after the Charge of the Light Brigade but which has since become an object of power. Nominally Buddhist, the Dhaumri Korati believe that the only way to defeat suffering is to wipe out existence; to destroy all sentient beings. Their present-day adherents are certain that if they consume human flesh they will be granted great spiritual and physical power but be cursed by the desire for more and more of it, a hunger, the Black Hunger, that can never be satisfied. They try to control it through tantric meditation, thus gaining power over their own bodies, other people and nature itself.

Against them the King’s Constabulary must use golden weapons and golden bullets, or, rather, since gold is a soft metal, bullets made from an alloy of gold and platinum. These derive their holy power from being used in Christian church ceremonies before being seized and melted down in the English Reformation.

The Crimean and Indian episodes echo the so-called Great Game and the othering of Oriental societies and peoples which reads unfortunately these days. A man such as Sackville, despite his homosexuality, would no doubt have subscribed to those prevailing attitudes. (The book itself contains a prefatory list of trigger warnings relating to – in order – homophobia, antisemitism, violence, child physical abuse, class privilege, mental illness, racism and colonialism. Don’t say you weren’t notified.)

The Orkney scenes lack some verisimilitude. Ian Stewart’s brother, Finlay, the Earl, shoots a deer. Deer on Orkney disappeared long before modern times. His residence, Kirkwall Castle, was actually destroyed in 1614 and so would not have been occupied in 1876. Artistic license may excuse those examples but more egregiously Pullen – despite once living in Edinburgh – does not seem to be aware that Scotland has its own judicial and policing system as he has Samuel Abravanel say the Court of Chancery (an England and Wales only entity) would deal with Scottish lunacy cases and London’s Metropolitan Police would be invited to oversee sensitive matters. I wondered also if a similar caveat might be placed against the statement that the once mighty Tibetan Empire renounced its power because of conscience.

The fantasy and horror elements build up as the novel progresses. We learn of Pretas from the spirit realm which roam the countryside always hungry, always craving human flesh. A more supercharged version called a Mahapreta is able to manifest into the physical world and has great power.

Pullen carries all this off well, his characterisation and narrative drive pulling the reader through. What to make of its supernatural components depends on said reader’s capacity to suspend disbelief in them.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- “without His Holiness’ seal” (His Holiness’s, another instance of Holiness’ later,) “onto Rawlins’ desk” (Rawlins’s,) “the hoi polloi” (‘hoi’ is Greek for ‘the’ so ‘the hoi polloi’ contains an unnecessary repetition,) a missing comma at the end of a piece of dialogue, a question rendered without a question mark, two sentences in present tense in an otherwise past tense passage, “the Laird of Stenness’ personal estate” (Stenness’s.) “I wracked my brain” (racked, another instance of ‘wracked’ for ‘racked’ later,) “we were flanked on three sides” (strictly flanks are on only the left and right of an army’s position, the enemy to the front is not on a flank,) “than either of those languages possess” (than either … possesses,) “rose to a crescendo” (the crescendo is the rise, not its culmination; there was another ‘rose to a crescendo’ later,) “my Wembley revolver” (Webley, I should think,) “the Ukraine” (true to its time, but the natives prefer just Ukraine,) “she struggled mightily” (twice in ten lines,) “the Crystal Palace exhibition” (the Crystal Palace Exhibition,) “Hermes Trismegistos” (Hermes Trismegistus,) “to bring back not just one, but hundreds of thousands of souls back from the netherworld” (has one ‘back’ too many.) “It was oblong with the end near us forming a perfect rectangle, and the farthest shore curved in a neat circle … it was shaped rather like a keyhole … or… a crude skull” (not oblong, then,) “ears perked up for further sounds” (the usual verb here is ‘pricked up’,) “a candelabra” (a candelabra is a candelabrum.)oliness’s,)

“When we was done, he raised his hands” (When he was done.)

Solaris, 2022, 158 p.

This is a curious concoction. Set in a world and a milieu, Goetia, which has strong resemblances to townships in Hollywood Westerns but an entirely different social order. It seems to be ruled by a group known as The Elect, with an underclass called the Fallen, powerful angel types known as Virtues, with added demon lords.

Celeste (only half Elect therefore one of the Fallen) is a croupier in an analogue of a Western Saloon, very protective of her younger sister Mariel since they were both left orphans. Celeste has a past with Abraxas, a demon lord, whose sexual attraction she can still feel but to whose control she did not completely fall into as she did not want to lose her soul.

The plot kicks off with the gruesome murder of an Elect, Daniel Alameda, in one of the saloon’s rooms. He was castrated and bled to death. It is Mariel who becomes accused of the crime.

The court being made up of the Elect only an examination into the accused’s spiritual fitness will determine guilt or innocence. But Fallen by default are not innocent. Nevertheless Celeste, engaged as advocatus diaboli by the head Virtue, is determined to prove Mariel’s lack of guilt.

Which means turning to Abraxas (who has a very close resemblance to Coyote in the author’s Sixth World books) for help. What he and she uncover and Celeste’s actions thereafter do not reflect well on either of the sisters.

Roanhorse writes well and has a cast of reasonably nuanced characters. Quite how all this sits with the overtones of the supernatural she is so fond of is debatable but I was willing to overlook that and go along for the ride.

Pedant’s corner:- “None of the Orders were fond of” (strictly; ‘None of the Orders was fond of’.) “‘I will abide your rules’” (abide by your rules,) “in the opposite direction of the camp” (the opposite direction to the camp,) “the metal gating” (it was the doors of a lift so ‘gating’ is okay but ‘grating’ is more natural,) “the box filled with the sound of mechanics” (these were not people who fix machines, but the machines themselves; so, ‘with the sound of the mechanism’,) drug (dragged,) “reached a deafening crescendo” (a crescendo is the rise, not its culmination; ‘crescendoed to a deafening climax’.)

Arcadia, 2024, 380 p. Reviewed for ParSec 13.

It is a usually unspoken assumption that it is the duty of a reviewer not to imbue a review with spoilers. Yet what to do if to give some flavour of the contents (something necessary to any review,) makes that all but impossible? Not that in this case any comments would really be much of a spoiler. The manner in which the story is told along with the structure of the book manage to do that without requiring any assistance. The main narrative is told in four Parts but its title (The Queen) is a hefty pointer to the contents, and the title page itself, plus those introducing the Prologue, each Part, the three separate sections of Part IV, plus the Epilogue, are blazoned with pale drawings of wasps. The Queen? Wasps? Some sort of vespine nightmare, pheromone driven, is surely being not merely hinted at, but promised. Moreover, the Prologue pretty much embodies the climactic scene, so anyone reading that already knows what the spoilers are. The rest of the text describes how the scenario got to that point.

The main action unfolds over a period of around twenty-four hours in June 2018 in the town of Saint Catharines, Ontario. Margaret June Carpenter (Cherry) has closeted herself at home since the disappearance of four students from her school, Northfield, several weeks before: three boys, Chad Dearborn, Will Stinson, Allan Teller, who are remembered fondly and worriedly, and Margaret’s best friend Charity Atwater (Plum,) who isn’t.

Margaret’s isolation is ended when a surprise package arrives containing a mobile phone. The texts on it appear to be from Charity as they mention things that only she would know. They insist Margaret follow the instructions she is given. These lead her to the school where in Margaret’s absence a mysterious girl called Serena – about whom the only thing anyone can remember is that she is ‘hot’ – has been instigating confusion. So far so High School story but there follows a very well written scene where a teacher, Mr Foster, is clearly under mental coercion while revealing to a shocked class avidly filming his confession on their phones an act of inappropriate conduct towards Serena. Here, too, Margaret is joined by Harry Cook, her boyfriend of sorts, and there is talk of a gathering remembered as Burning Van from the burnt-out vehicle where its events, the trigger for the plot, centred.

Another strand relates the back story of an Elon Musk-like billionaire called Rudyard Crate, who as a child witnessed his elder sister eaten alive by a swarm of dorylus, or siafu, ants while barely escaping himself, which has naturally haunted him ever since but given him an unhealthy fixation. He has instigated Project Athena, designed to introduce insect phenotypes (mostly of wasps, but also of other genera) into human DNA to produce a hybrid creature. The most successful of these is Subject Six, indistinguishable from a human child until triggered by a “time of dynamic bodily or neurological change like human teenage-hood.” Subject Six: a wasp in the nest of Northfield.

When she meets Crate, Margaret notes his Businessman’s laugh, a phenomenon her father warned her of. “‘It’s as fake as a three-dollar bill, Margaret. Never trust a man who’s perfected his Businessman’s laugh.’”

The June 2018 setting is, perhaps, an authorial mis-step given that in the book the climactic events are well publicised and discussed but of course readers in 2024 have never heard of them. In all, though, The Queen is a well written but curiously unconvincing tale from the area where Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror overlap – at least unconvincing to those like me who normally don’t read horror stories – until we reach Part IV, Ever After, and a section where in an article reprinted from a magazine, Chris Packer, a journalist born and brought up in St Catharines, compares and contrasts the post-happening world-wide reactions to Margaret and Charity and so the novel begins to comment on itself and take on wider concerns.

Packer remembers from a case of abduction and killing years earlier that not all missing girls were treated equally. The one from the better-off families was spoken of with adoration: the one from the wrong side of town dismissed. It was ever thus.

Two more shorter bits of Part IV provide further perspective and reflections on the story’s events – even a touch of hope.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- Written in USian. Otherwise; “He had no other companions other than” (has one ‘other’ too many,) sunk (x 5, sank, which did appear once,) “hung myself” (hanged myself.)  “Plum and me had been” (Plum and I had been,) “left raw wheals on its ankles and wrists” (raw weals.) “Queens force-feed it to her drones and attendants” (force-feed it to their drones and attendants.) “The larvae hatches” (The larvae hatch – larva was used correctly as the singular a few lines later,) “Mussorgsky’s ‘Night on Bald Mountain’” (usually translated as ‘Night on the Bare Mountain’,) sprung (sprang,) “their DNA helixes” (helices?) sanitarium (sanatorium,) staunch (stanch,) “she shrunk in the swing” (shrank.) “The song rose to its glittering crescendo” (the crescendo is the rise, not the end of the rise.) “Outside of” (no ‘of’ please, just ‘outside’.)

Hodderscape, 2024, 374 p. Reviewed for ParSec 12.

In September 1903 Samantha Harker is a librarian at The Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena, an organisation which investigates mysteries and monsters and whose field agents hunt them. Since her grandfather suddenly disappeared, leaving only an enigmatic message in Morse code – a series of numbers, probably a book cipher – Sam has been anxious to find out what happened to him and if he is still alive. A report from Paris of incidents being called the Beast murders excites her because an illustrating photograph shows the same series of dots and dashes as in her grandfather’s note. She petitions the Society’s Mr Wright to be assigned the case only to be told it has already been allotted to Dr Helena Moriarty (daughter of the “infamous” Professor who had “snuffed out” Sherlock Holmes.) Hel is one of the Society’s best agents but her last three assistants were all killed in various ways. Only if she assents can Sam accompany her. Despite misgivings, she does.

Another of the Society’s field agents is Jakob Van Helsing, son of the Professor who helped trace and kill Count Dracula. Sam has known him since childhood as her parents were Mina and Jonathan Harker who had also been enmeshed in Dracula’s activities. Indeed, Sam was apparently conceived while Mina was under Dracula’s influence. Van Helsing is wary of Sam as he believes, rightly, that she can channel, is able to feel the influence of spirits, a fact Sam needs to keep from the world for fear of being put in an asylum.

What we have here, then, is a riff on two of the nineteenth century’s most well-known fictional creations; only set a couple of decades later. As a result of that and its mostly Parisian mise en scène the book has a fin de siècle feel (though – given it’s 1903 – perhaps début du siècle would be a better description.)

Morris does not pastiche Stoker nor Conan Doyle, though. She has her own approach and intentions, with her book also a vehicle for the deployment of a thesaurus of beasties and things that go bump – or worse – in the night. As well as vampires, there are mentions of a glaistig, trolls, duendes, a cockatrice, a grindylow, barghests, kelpies, drudes, wolpertingers, rusalkas, a carcolh, boggarts, a basilisk, púcai and werewolves – though the werewolves have all been exterminated decades ago.

The grisly Beast murders, the victims’ bodies eviscerated, their hearts torn out and likely eaten – and perhaps meant to invoke the real-life Whitechapel killings by Jack the Ripper (but with the sex of the victims changed) – have all been of well-off men who had mistresses. A banner reading The Wages of Sin is Death has been left at each murder scene. Sam’s facility to detect odours leads her to the pre-eminent perfumier in Paris, Arsène Courbet, to see who might have commissioned the scent she identifies the deaths have in common.

Along the way to the denouement we have encounters with an entirely human quasi-revolutionary underground organisation called The Wolves of God whose logo is also displayed beside each victim, an odyssey into the voluminous catacombs which underly Paris, and a night at the opera where Sam tries to prevent another murder.

This is incident packed stuff but still finds plenty of time to explain Hel’s extremely estranged relationships with her father and her brother Ruari, who are both manipulating the circumstances of Hel’s life and of others around her. Through it all Hel and Sam are very engaging company.

That we have two strong female characters at the book’s focus and occasional anachronistic uses of language, like an invocation to “Get it together” and the phrase “I’m in recovery,” signal that this is indeed a modern novel, not an hommage. The murders are of course solved but enough in the scenario is left unresolved to provide scope for a sequel or two. Which readers are likely to welcome.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- written in USian, “not one of which has returned” (the ‘which’ were people so ‘not one of whom has returned’,) imposter (impostor,) “magnum opuses” (fine in English I suppose, but the Latin plural is ‘magna opera’,) professionality (professionalism – used later,) rarified (rarefied,) “none of the victims were religious” (none of the victims was religious,) parliament (Parliament,) craniums (crania?) “an pain aux raisins” (a pain aux raisins,) “the chimes rung out” (rang out.) “To think, Sam had regaled Hel with” (no comma required after think,) “like a black and shipwrecked sea” (can a sea be shipwrecked?) “mortar and pestles” (mortars and pestles,) “row houses” (that would be “terraced houses” – they were in Wales, not the US,) “she seemed like to make” (an odd usage; ‘she seemed likely to make’ is more natural,) “trapping púca in her backyard” (the plural is púcai.)

Plus points for ‘wills’-o’-the-wisp’.

Issue no 14 of ParSec magazine is now available.

Among its other goodies this one has my reviews of:-

If the Stars are Lit by Sara K Ellis

Orphan Planet by Madeehah Reza

The Hamlet by Joanna Corrance

Dark Crescent by Lyndsey Croal

Vintage, 2023, 343 p

Lux was brought up by her mother in a house by the forest. Her mother was a healer and maker of poppets and possets, subject to suspicion because her baby had arrived suddenly with no man on the scene. Her mother gone, and Lux returned to the house after a sojourn in a sanctuary subject to strict religious rules, she is living alone when a woman, Else, arrives seeking her help to poison the local lord “‘who calls women witches so that he has an excuse to kill them.’” That same night Lux’s house is attacked by some of the local boys. They are driven off by a wolf, which may be Else in transfigured form, but not before the house is set on fire. Lux and Else set off together into the forest. The rest of the tale follows both – but mainly Lux – until she eventually finds employment in the lord’s castle, with Else tending to the herb/poison garden, and their misadventures there. I note here that Logan attributes to the lady of the manor more agency than a woman in her situation is likely to have had.

After a “Before” prologue which is unpunctuated (apart from dashes) and printed in italics and with no capital letters, the story is told in five parts. Parts One and Three have section titles all beginning with “Now She Is” followed by one word (in order these were Outcast, Prey, Maiden, Servant, Sacrifice, Whore, Poisoner.)

Part Two is “Lux’s Story” and is given to us also unpunctuated and printed in italics with no capital letters (apart from the words He and Him when describing the lover she had in the sanctuary.) Part Four, “Else’s story,” was similarly unpunctuated but had capital letters where appropriate.

Part Five’s sections have no titles and are in numbered order.

We are here, though, firmly in default faux-mediæval fantasy territory though there is some additional colour, a land bridge between the south and the north, the sea rising, there has been fire in the sky, poison vapours, ash, a sickness spreading supposedly from the north, whose sign is black roses on the skin.

Logan’s almost relentless theme is man’s inhumanity to woman.  “Women are, as Father Fleck used to tell them at the sanctuary, less intelligent, more suggestible, and have more entry points into their bodies. All those orifices ready for a devil to creep into.” In Else’s story she tells Lux “it turns out all that really matters in this world is what a man wants because you either give it to him or he takes it and gives nothing in return” but “Beauty is dangerous. Beauty has power. Beauty has violence.” She outlines “the only available options, Maiden, Wife, Nun, Widow,” adding, “And I could not be any of these even if I wanted to. But there is one other option for a woman and it is the worst of all. Witch. Witch. Witch.”

The plot unfolds slowly to the point where we find the reason for Else’s attachment to Lux.

I suppose it is difficult to write in a contemporary setting a story about the best option for a woman being a witch but I’m really tired of tales such as this adopting a historical template.

On a sentence level Logan is good and her characterization is more than adequate. The whole thing seemed a little bit by the numbers though.

Pedant’s corner:- “Jesus’ birth” (Jesus’s,) “her tongue would not lay still” (would not lie still,) “aren’t I?” (Logan is Scottish; the correct usage is “amn’t I?”)

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.)

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.)