Tor, 2016, 332 p, including ii p Thanks.

This is the last of Walton’s “Thessaly” trilogy in which the author examines the ramifications of implementing Plato’s philosophy in a restricted setting. This is also a scenario in which the ancient Greek Gods are real and can interfere in human affairs. I reviewed the first volume, The Just City, here and the second The Philosopher Kings here.

Necessity takes place in the 26^th century on the planet Plato to where Zeus removed the people of the Just City at the end of The Philosopher Kings. As in that second book there are twelve cities in all to cater for people’s various preferences. The climate on Plato is colder than the Greece from which most of the humans now living there were derived. Nevertheless their habitual attire is the kiton. As well as humans, the planet is home to some aliens known as Saeli who have immigrated there and are accepted as full members of society. Contact has also occurred with another set of aliens known as Amarathi. Many tasks on Plato, as in the Just City, are carried out by Workers, sentient robots accorded human rights. One of these, Crocus, has narration duties, as do the humans Jason and Marsilia and the god Apollo. Jason is a fisherman whose crew includes the Saeli, Hilfa, and the present consul Marsilia. He has an unrequited yen for Marsilia’s sister Thetis.

The book starts on the day when Pytheas, the human incarnation of Apollo and grandfather of one of our narrators, Marsilia, dies and a spaceship containing humans (from the planet Marhaba) arrives in orbit round Plato. This last, the reader might have thought, would provide the main thrust of the intrigue/plot but in fact not much is made of it. Instead the thread that is followed is a search for Apollo’s sister Athene who has ventured outside time, to study Necessity, and what Chaos is, and how time began. Necessity is later referred to as a great force that binds all thinking beings. Zeus, the father of both Apollo and Athene, would apparently be displeased if he knew Athene had done this – at least once his attention had been drawn to it – but despite him knowing everything no consequences will ensue if she can be brought back before it comes to his attention.

The human interactions are something of a sub-plot. Marsilia has an eight-year-old child, Alkippe, whom she had conceived with someone calling himself Panodorus. He appears at a gathering but does not recognise her and everyone else sees he is Apollo’s brother Hermes. (Yet even this is another disguise as he is in fact the Saeli god, Jathery.) His failure to recognise Marsilia is because in his time he has not yet met her. This is a potentially disastrous situation since if he does not step outside time then Alkippe may not ever have existed. Again, not as much is made of this situation as might be expected.

Walton it seems is more interested in philosophical speculation than interpersonal (or god to human) conflict. Her writing is fine, though – she can pull you along – and she brings out her characters’ attributes well, but in the end Necessity is a touch disappointing.

Pedant’s corner:- kiton (the spelling chiton displays its Greek origin more clearly,) “we were back on in the peaceful glade” (no need for the ‘on’,) “on a women’s body” (a woman’s.)

Corsair, 2014, 318 p.

Multiple lives have been having a bit of a vogue recently what with the likes of Life after Life and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. The trend may be waning now but this is one to add to the list – though its premise is more akin to that of the film Sliding Doors in that its protagonist, known variously as Patricia, Patsy, Patty, Pat, Tricia, Trish, has two lives here, the hinge being when she accepts or rejects her fiancé’s demand to marry her on the instant when he garners only a third class degree instead of the first they had both been expecting. The first chapter sees Patricia in a nursing home at the end of her life, remembering her past and confused as to whether she had four or three children. Up to the fifth chapter we follow the course of her early life until the (in)decisive moment. The two strands of her life alternate chapters with each other thereafter.

Both are altered histories. Depending on the strand, there are relatively small nuclear exchanges between the US and USSR over Cuba, others later in the Middle East and elsewhere, Bobby Kennedy becoming President in 1964, the UK joining the Coal and Steel Community at its inception in the 1950s, a rise in authoritarianism in Pat’s later life. Unfortunately all of this requires too much telling and not enough showing and this applies to the main thrust of the stories as well as the historical background.

It’s all shot through with how hard life is for women and the unfairnesses of discrimination against minorities, particularly same sex couples. Worthy, but done heavy-handedly.

I know we’re implicitly invited to do so ourselves but it is only in the final chapter, when Patricia’s lives seem to have re-coalesced, that Walton begins to make wider contrasts and connections by which time it is really too late.

Pedant’s corner:- Despite being a British edition this uses the USian text and spellings. Otherwise; post office (Post Office,) Finefare supermarket (it was Fine Fare,) “wracked with guilt” (racked.) “‘They will, however, will serve adequately’” (has one ‘will’ too many.) “The government were funding” (the government was funding,) grifters (is a USian term. A Brit wouldn’t use that but ‘conmen’ instead.) “Could she made it again, knowingly?” (Could she make it again.)

TTA Press

Andy Hedgecock’s Editorial¹ is an appreciation of the late Brian Aldiss of blessed memory. Jonathan McCalmont² ponders the uses of allusion, contrasting the reductive and lazy with the dense or expansive. Nina Allan welcomes post-SF. Book Zone has an interesting and discursive author interview by Jo Walton³ with Adam Roberts to tie in with his new novel The Real-Time Murders but neglects to review the book. Duncan Lunan⁴ reviews Paul Kincaid’s book of criticism Iain M Banks mostly by relating his experiences of the late master. There is also Juliet E McKenna’s take on Charles Stross’s Delirium Brief, Stephen Theaker⁵ on Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning while John Howard reviews Xeelee Vengeance by Stephen Baxter, with the final item a review of Hal Duncan’s A Scruffian Survival Guide by Elaine C Gallagher who also interviews⁶ the author.
In the fiction:
As the world slowly rebuilds after war and ecological disaster, Blessings Erupt by Aliya Whiteley tells the story of the last of the original plastic eaters, consuming the hydrocarbon-based tumours that afflict the population in return for years of service to the company he represents.
The Music of Ghosts⁷ by Paul Jessop is set on a generation starship after Earth has been destroyed. The voyagers’ essences are supposed to be uploaded into the library after their death but things go wrong.
In a Melbourne fifty years past any relevance it ever had Ghosts of a Neon God⁸ by T R Napper tells of two small time crooks who are unwittingly embroiled in a dispute between the Chinese who run the place.
A white mist of unknown origin – possibly alien, possibly human – has “clouded cognitive processes and slowed down conscious thought” and in Erica L Satifka’s The Goddess of the Highway⁹ people are fitted with plates in their heads in a caste system to suit each to their new roles. Viewpoint characters Harp, a Plastic who monitors a truck criss-crossing the former US, and Spike, a Platinum, come together to try to join the resistance. The titular goddess may be a manifestation of the plates.

Pedant’s corner:- ¹Aldiss’ (Aldiss’s.) ²Written in USian, “the crowd are right” (the crowd is.) ³Lord Peter Whimsy (did Roberts actually say that? I believe him capable of such punnery but in English English – as opposed to Scottish English – the correct, Wimsey, and the pun, whimsy, are much less distinguishable,) descendent (descendant,) ⁴Banks’ (Banks’s,) “human affairs are so complex than any stance (that any stance,) ⁵“A series of innovations have set this world apart” (a series has,) ⁶fit (fitted) ⁷Written in USian, “the sun grew wane and hungry with light” (wan?) “the whirring of machines are chugging” (the whirring is chugging but even that is clumsy.) Ray stops programming for a moment and touches Ray’s hands” (Mark’s hands.) The story is riddled with errors in tense. It’s written in the present but has past tense verb forms intruding, “He’d been training for this day” (He’s ) “And his heart was a wild thing inside his ribs” (is.) “They ran into the storage facility” (run,) “and then she turned” (turns.) ⁸“Now it may as well not even existed” (exist,) his practiced stride (practised,) focussed (focused.) ⁹Written in USian, hocking up (hawking,) “the majority of what gets shipped are luxuries” (the majority is,) “intersecting a round sphere” (I’d like to see a sphere that isn’t round!)

Re-reading the classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Corsair, 2015, 477 p.

This is a collection of Walton’s contributions to a blog on Tor.com, appearing between 15/6/2008 and 25/2/2011, in which she discussed the works of SF and fantasy she had been re-reading during that time. Her claim to be able to read up to six books in a day astonished me. If she’s doing that how does she fit in everyday life – food shopping, cooking, eating, family life, putting out the bins? Where on Earth can she find time to write fiction, or a blog post? Yes she says she sometimes spends all day in bed (I assume through illness or some debilitation) but even so. Admittedly that six was a maximum and she says she starts another book as soon as finishing the previous one. There was also the odd, to me, observation that she feels she hasn’t read a book if she hasn’t re-read it at least once; that first impressions of a book are suspect. I differ here, certainly from a later in life perspective. If a book does it for me the first time that’s fine; with perhaps a very few exceptions, if it doesn’t, a re-read is unlikely to help. My tbr pile is too high for much re-reading anyway. I also cannot read at Walton’s pace. Perhaps I pay too close an attention to the minutiae of a text; vide Pedant’s corner.

Many of Walton’s enthusiasms I doubt I would share. She spends 14 posts and over 60 pages here on Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series which has far too many volumes for me to embark upon now, and in any case I have a disrecommendation from another source. Similarly 17 posts and 53 pages on Steven Brust’s Dragaera series. Not going to happen.

Walton always writes interestingly about the subject at hand; even of books I have no desire to read (whatever her eloquence.) And “IWantToReadItosity” is a great coinage. “It’s hard to explain, is utterly subjective and is entirely separate from whether a book is actually good.” We all have such guilty pleasures.

She occasionally digresses from the SF/Fantasy remit, for example enthusing about Iain Banks’s The Crow Road and of Middlemarch opines that George Eliot would have been a great writer of Science Fiction if only she’d had the idea to invent the form.

A puff on the back cover quotes Publishers Weekly, ‘For readers unschooled in the history of SF/F, this book is a treasure trove.’ I wouldn’t disagree.

Pedant’s corner:- Various instances of “there are a number” or “there are a lot” – too many to note individually. “I admire it to no end” (if anything this means “there is no purpose to my admiration of it”. I assume Walton meant “I admire it no end.”) a missing comma before a quote (x 2,) Achilles’ (Achilles’s,) visit with (visit,) “Every culture has their own naming custom” (its own naming custom,) “and right go on into” (and go right on into,) for goodness’ sake (goodness’s.) “The Mazianni are a company fleet” (is a fleet,) “the rest of the worlsd … look on jealously” (looks on,) “The weight of significance of things … sometimes need” (needs,) “when it gets us information” (gives us,) Marilac – but two lines later Marilican Embassy (which is it; Marilac or Marilic, Marilacan or Marilican?) “global warming has deteriorated” (“the climate has deteriorated because of global warming,”) “and is decided” (either “has decided” or “is tasked with” the context isn’t entirely clear,) Katan (Katin on next page,) “‘going I know not whence’” (in a quote from Dunsany; whence means “from where” – you can’t go “from where”,) “‘to be a part of the forest. (from ‘The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for the Sacnoth’)” (no full stop after forest; or else a capital F at “from” and a full stop after Sacnoth.) “There are the sort of situations,” (the sorts of situations,) “who’s presented a great poet” (as a great poet,) elegaic (it’s spelled elegiac.) “There were a host (there was a host,) “that the British population shrink” (shrinks,) “Shute’s Britain …., indeed their ability” (its ability,) “to get away with Nicholas’s guesses to be more often right than wrong” (being more often,) to whit (to wit,) the PTA are considering (the PTA is considering,) vaccuum (vacuum,) “These are the kind of” (kinds of,) Marcus Aurelius’ (Marcus Aurelius’s,) “so that she has learned to thank people, and realise how nice” (realised,) Jesus’ (Jesus’s,) “Small Beer are definitely my favourite small press” (is definitely,) vapourised (vaporised, this is a curious error in a book full of USianisms,) ascendency (ascendancy,) philo-sophical (no hyphen) even moreso (more so.)

TTA Press

Dave Senecal’s Editorial¹ ponders the necessity of mystery to the creative impulse.Jonathan McCalmont’s column examines how SF got into its present sorry state and says it ought to return to preparing us for the future. If his example of Carl Neville’s Resolution Way is to be believed (not to mention the world’s political circumstances) that future may be hellish. Nina Allan’s Time Piece reflects on the different approaches required to writing fiction and non-fiction especially with regard to those recent political events. In the book reviews² you’ll find mine of Ken Liu’s Invisible Planets, Maureen Kincaid Speller’s evaluation of Johana Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun, Duncan Lunan’s review of Stephen Baxter’s H G Wells’s estate-approved War of the Worlds sequel The Massacre of Mankind and Shaun Green’s take on both Iraq +100 edited by Hassan Blasim and Adrian Selby’s Snakewood, while in 2016 Round Up³ Interzone’s regular book reviewers list their bests of the year. Despite not reading not much new fiction in 2015 Jo Lindsay Walton manages to produce an extended essay on the year’s fiction.

As to the stories, Everyone Gets a Happy Ending⁴ by Julie C Day features an unusual apocalypse. A plague of rabbits foisted on human wombs by Immaculate Conception.

The Noise & The Silence⁵ by Christien Gholson. In a world saturated by The Wall ceaselessly pounding out Orwellian slogans and musical pap, a resistance movement known as The Silence arose. It was put down but adherents hang on in the hidden places.

The Transmuted Child⁶ of Michael Reid’s story is Esmonde, thrown out by her family after her Erkess implant makes her drown her brother. Her new carer, Dao Nghiem, takes her to the Erkess home world to try to find a cure for her.

Mel Kassel’s Weavers in the Cellar are spiders kept in captivity to weave clothes and armour for their captors. Any thoughts of their species’ previous relationship are Unthinkable. But our narrator’s mother passed on knowledge of her heritage.

Freedom of Navigation⁷ by Val Nolan is set amidst a territorial dispute in the asteroid belt. Two of the narrator’s slaved AIs come to believe he is a traitor. For some reason I was reminded of the film Casablanca.

The Rhyme of Grievance⁸ by T R Napper follows the granting of human rights to the first AI. A woman who needed to finance a life-saving operation is recruited by those who see AIs as merely an extension of the powerful class to destroy it. I was reminded of Robert Heinlein’s The Roads Must Roll.

Pedant’s corner:- ¹wont (won’t; but Sevecal’s an artist not a wordsmith.) ²refers throughout to England rather than Britain. Perhaps Baxter did this, I can’t remember if Wells did. ³practise (noun; therefore practice) “the emotional contortions forces onto us” (forced,) Roberts’ (Roberts’s,) an italicised Thing is which didn’t seem to be a title, superrare (super-rare,) The Triump of Mechanics (Triumph,) ⁴unphased (apparently phased is a legitimate US variant of fazed. I prefer there to be a distinction in the spellings.) ⁵”The vibrations … was said” (were said.) ⁶Erkess’ (Erkess’s.) “A bundle of ropy organs descend” (a bundle descends,) ⁷“Part of the sides of my feet were numb” (Parts were numb,) florescent (fluorescent,) “the Belt Republic is moving one of their asteroids” (its asteroids,) “there was nothing us pilots liked more than mischief” (we pilots,) ci-Martian space (cis-Martian space?) “subservice activity via seismic shivers” (subsurface makes more sense,) ordinance (ordnance – used previously.) ⁸“The audience were” (was,) colourful vegetable and fruit (vegetables,) to sooth (soothe,) “up to white porcelain sink” (to the white porcelain sink.)

Corsair, 2013, 408 p.

How does a reviewer describe this odd but delightful concoction? A coming of age story? No; the critical event of the narrator’s life so far has occurred before the time at which all but the initial chapter is set. A tale of adolescent awakening? Yes to that one. A fairy story? That first chapter invites us to consider it so but it does not begin with “once upon a time” nor end with “they lived happily ever after” and is in any case written in a realistic register. Then again it does have fairies in it. An orphan’s tale? Not quite, the narrator has run away from her mother and ended up in the care of a father – and his overbearing three sisters – whom she had previously never known. A boarding school story? In part. (You could well lose count of the number of ways in which our narrator is “among others”.) A primer on Science Fiction and Fantasy? Undoubtedly. It is almost perfectly calibrated to appeal to those with a love for the genre, especially for those books of the 1960s and 1970s people of a certain age will remember with great affection. Yet it doesn’t neglect the wider world of letters either. In particular it shows the interest in Plato Walton would later indulge in her Thessaly trilogy.

As a novel the story is couched in the form of almost daily diary entries – covering the six months from September 1979 to February 1980 – by one Morganna Rachel Phelps Markova, many of which display her love of books and of SF/Fantasy in particular. She can also see and talk to fairies and practices magic – but only in a benign way. Morganna’s voice is pitch perfect. This is how we feel a sometimes confused but opinionated girl of fifteen might write about herself. With a gammy leg due to an incident in which her twin sister was killed while they thwarted an attempt by their witch mother to destroy the world in some (unspecified) way she has difficulty with mobility. In memoriam she seems to have taken her dead sister’s name, Morwenna. One of the diary entries is signed as Morganna, letting us know this.

Walton has some fun delineating the antipathies of the Welsh towards the English (and the condescension from the other direction,) the snobbery endemic in a boarding school, “Class is entirely intangible, and the way it affects things isn’t subject to scientific analysis, and it’s not supposed to be real but it’s pervasive and powerful. See; just like magic,” and the oddities of adolescent behaviours in general. Her injuries actually are an aid as her bookishness would have set her even further apart from her boarding school peers. As it is she is excused games and haunts the school library, “Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilisation.” Her mother is an intermittent looming menace throughout the book and this is the major weak point as all the confrontations with her mother are curiously muted and of course the major one took place outside the novel’s confines. The final confrontation is somewhat anti-climactic, and over too quickly.

Apart from that Among Others is, to use Morganna/Morwenna’s word, brill.

Pedant’s corner:- chemistry (as a school subject it’s Chemistry; ditto Biology for biology – both French and Latin were capitalised; however, Physics, Economics, History and Music were not,) who everyone loves (whom,) “I bought four honey buns to go” (Morganna is supposed to be Welsh, not USian; the British usage is “to take away”,) someone is described as a fly half for the house hockey team; fly half is [or was] a position in Rugby Union, not, as far as I know, in hockey,) Morganna quotes a song’s lyric as, “‘Over the hills to Abergavenny, hoping the weather’ll be fine.’” (The actual lyric is, ‘Taking a trip up to Abergavenny, Hoping the weather is fine’,) “where we brush our teeth, and our hair” (the comma is unnecessary. Or is it?) “How much more likely resurrection if the dead process through the valley” (likely is resurrection,) “to which it is intended” (“for which” is more usual,) fit as a past tense (is USian, a Welsh girl would write fitted,) “everyone one always talks at the top of their voice” (at the tops of their voices,) “an explosion at a paint factory” (it’s usually “an explosion in a paint factory”,) a whole scrum were milling about (a scrum was,) “I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt?” (is not a question,) “Though I think ‘Etruscan Sea’ scans better?” (ditto; there were four more instances of such non-questions appended with a question mark,) “I don’t have maths brain” (a maths brain; or, a brain for maths,) “Burnham Wood coming to Dunsinane” (Birnam Wood.)

Corsair, 2015, 352 p.

Twenty years on from the events of The Just City and its Last Debate following which Athene flew off in a huff taking all but two of the Worker robots with her, our Platonists are still trying to become their best selves but have split into five cities on Kallisti/Santorini/Thera/Atlantis and a further group headed by Kebes/Mathias who sailed off in the ship Goodness to found colonies in the Ægean. The remaining five cities indulge in raiding each other to purloin the city’s art works for themselves. The Philsopher Kings starts off with one of these in which the heroine of the previous book, Simmea, is killed by an arrow. Apollo, in his incarnation as Pytheas, could have prevented her death but she forestalled him. The rest of the novel is preoccupied with Apollo’s search for the reasons why she wanted him to remain in the project without her and a quest for revenge on Kebes whom Apollo thought might be responsible for Simmea’s death and discovers from her journal had as good as (as bad as?) raped her. This gives Walton the opportunity to take us on a sub-Homeric trip round the Mediterranean and to allow those of Apollo/Pytheas’s children who are on the voyage to be imbued with divine powers on the island of Delos. It turns out the Goodness group has started to practice a form of Christianity, centuries before Christ’s life. They rationalise this by saying he is their eternal saviour.

As in the first book the narrative is presented from three viewpoints. Those of Maia and Apollo follow on from it, but, Simmea being dead, the third thread here is as by her daughter by Apollo/Pytheas, Arete (whose name means excellence.) There is much talk of possibly changing history but The Philosopher Kings does not engage as fully with the issues of free will and equal significance as The Just City did.

(Spoiler) There is also a spectacular example of what I can only call a Zeus ex machina towards the end. Granted, in Walton’s scenario the Greek Gods are real but Zeus has heretofore been well offstage and his incorporation seemed a trifle gratuitous.

Maybe this book is suffering from middle-of-trilogy, marking-time syndrome. I’ll still look out for Necessity, the next in the sequence.

Pedant’s corner:- blacksmith (isn’t this technically an iron-worker? We’re in the Bronze Age here, though iron is mentioned in places. The general term for metal-worker is smith.) “Near enough the overhear us” (near enough to.) “The thing they most wanted to discover….. were” (The thing…..was.) A sculpture of a crucifixion describes nails through “his palms and feet”; I believe the Romans actually pinned the nails through the wrists and ankles. Arete’s narrative refers to this as a crucifix but she would not have known that word. We are only told later she can understand all languages. Kebes face (Kebes’s – which appears later.) “‘I don’t want to discuss standing it on the harbor.’” (‘I don’t want to discuss it standing on the harbor.’)

Corsair, 2015, 368 p including iv p Thanks and Notes.

The God Apollo cannot understand why Daphne prayed to Artemis to turn her into a tree rather than mate with him. As a result he resolves to become mortal for a while in order to learn about volition and equal significance (ie according to others their right to self-determination.) His half-sister Athene suggests he go to Kallisti, the part of the Mediterranean island of Thera which will be destroyed when the volcano erupts, where some people are attempting to set up a society based on Plato’s Republic. Here, overseen by masters (Plato-loving scholars drawn from throughout human history – not all of whom are men, despite their title) are brought ten-year old children bought from slave markets to be moulded by Plato’s rules with the intent that they strive to be their best selves and so produce philosopher kings – people who truly understand the truth, agree on what it is, and pursue it – either of the children themselves, from whom the contents of the Republic are to be withheld until they are fifty, or their offspring. Robots from our future do all the work of maintenance and food production. All the children and most masters have their original names replaced, even Cicero. Into this so called Just City after five years comes Sokrates – the only master there who had not in some way requested it. He, of course, questions everything, including the robots.

The narrative is divided into three viewpoints: that of Apollo, incarnated on Kallisti as Pytheas; a slave girl, Simmea; and Maia, a woman born in nineteenth century Harrogate. Between the three this gives Walton the opportunity to discuss not only Plato’s ideas but also issues of free will, the rights of individuals and the nature of sentience. In the midst of this she has Sokrates inquire, “‘If you pursue happiness….. do you get closer to it or further away?’” and Athene, in human form as Septima, “‘most women might as well not exist for all the contribution most of us get to make to history.’”

When the children reach the age of sixteen a system of temporary marriages, whose participants should appear to be randomly selected for each other but really to ensure only the most fit reproduce, is instituted. Human nature being what it is, some couples pair up outside this system, against the rules, and sneak off to do what couples do. Simmea adheres strictly to the rules but Pythea, who is attracted by her mind (she is flat-faced, flat chested and buck-toothed) in the end wants her for himself, as does Kebes, who resents the whole process in Kallisti as being no better than the slavery the children were removed from.

Walton also portrays incidents which underline the thrust of her novel and the arguments it makes. Some of these are perhaps just a little too programmatic. For example, Maia is raped by Ikaros, though he doesn’t understand his actions as rape. Plato wrote that defective babies or those of defective parents should be exposed – a common practice in the classical world. Despite her misgivings, Maia does expose a hare-lipped child.

The Just City is interesting, thought-stirring stuff. Unfortunately, after a public dialogue between Sokrates and Athene, the novel stops rather than concludes. There is a sequel though, The Philosopher Kings, which I shall search out.

Pedant’s corner:- there were a whole host of reasons (there was a host,) the Tech Committee have decided (has decided,) a full stop at the end of a question, to extend this out to everyone (no “out”,) somebody who had never showed cowardice (shown,) said as got dressed (as he got dressed,) Creusa (Kreusa,) ‘we can fix it would be much better’ (fix it it would be,) had rarely seem him (seen,) the crowd were making (the crowd was.)
Walton employs k where c is usually written in English for Greek names, hence Patroklus and Sokrates, but still uses the c in the phrase Socratic dialogues, she also in her note on pronunciation at the end says “ch” is a hard sound as in Bach or loch; in my experience Scots do not pronounce loch – nor Bach come to that – in such a way.

One thing that niggled me about Jo Walton’s “Small Change” trilogy (which I read recently) was the title of the third volume. After Farthing and Ha’penny came Half a Crown.

Now, a farthing was the smallest pre-decimal British coin value – at least until it was phased out due to inflation rendering it all but useless – and a ha’penny was next up; but half a crown was a large enough sum almost not to be counted as being small change. Walton does use farthing as a pun and the “Half a Crown” is indicative of the levers of power not resting with the monarch and in any case with her being at risk in a coup d’état, but some lovely gradations were missing.

Before decimalisation the British Pound Sterling (£1) was divided up into twenty shillings (20/-) and each shilling into twelve pennies (twelve pence; written as 12d – the d I believe from the old Roman denarius.) In addition there was the halfpenny (ha’penny, ½d) and the farthing (“fourthing”, worth a quarter of a penny, ¼d.)

This seemingly odd arrangement was in fact very versatile as £1 could be divided by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 into whole values of shillings or pennies; respectively 10 shillings (10/-), six shillings and eight pence (six and eight, 6/8d), a crown (or five shillings, 5/-), three shillings and four pence (three and four, 3/4d), half a crown (two shillings and sixpence, 2/6d), two shillings (2/-).

All coins had the head of the monarch at their time of minting on the obverse. There were three types of coin known as coppers from their colour and perhaps the original metal used in their minting. The farthing was a lovely coin with a depiction of a wren on the reverse. The larger ha’penny had a ship (Drake’s the Golden Hind.) The still larger penny showed a seated Britannia and shield.

Next in value was the dodecagonal in profile and dirty-goldish coloured three pence coin (known as a thruppenny bit) with Prince of Wales feathers or a portcullis representing the Houses of Parliament on the reverse though earlier silver thruppennies were still in circulation in the 1960s.

The larger value coins were all silver. The sixpence coin was very small in circumference and called a tanner with latterly a floral design; the shilling (or “bob”) had various designs – with a Scottish version, the two shilling (a “florin” or “two bob”) similarly varied in design and the half crown (“two and six” but sometimes nicknamed half a dollar) also varied. There was – and still is – a crown worth five shillings (now 25p) but these were very rare and today’s issues are mainly for collectors but are I believe still legal tender.

The ten shilling denomination of the currency was actually a paper note (known as a ten bob note.)

Only “coppers” were likely to be considered “small” change.

Walton’s sequence, then, goes awry after ha’penny as the next price point was ¾d, three farthings, and the next coinage value was 1d, a penny.

As far as prices were concerned they followed the order:-
¼d – a farthing
½d – a ha’penny
¾d – three farthings
1d – a penny
1¼d – a penny farthing
1½d – three ha’pence (or a penny ha’penny)
1¾d – a penny three farthings
2d – tuppence
2¼d – tuppence farthing
2½d – tuppence ha’penny
2¾d – tuppence three farthings
3d – thruppence
3¼d – thruppence farthing
3½d – thruppence ha’penny, etc etc up to a shilling.

After a shilling there were usages like-
1/3d (one and three; one shilling, three pence)
2/7d (two and seven; two shillings, seven pence)
Any ha’pennies or farthings were added on as in 1/2½d (one and tuppence ha’penny) 7/4¾d (seven and fourpence three farthings.)

Nobody ever asked for a crown. It was always referred to as five shillings.

Wonderful stuff – but I believe it confused foreigners, including visitors from the US, no end.

Corsair, 2014, 316 p. Returned to a threatened library.

This follows the narrative template of the two previous books in Walton’s “Small Change” trilogy, Farthing and Ha’penny, set in a fascistic British state arising from an early peace with Germany in what we would call World War 2 but here would be a misnomer. The third person chapters again focus on Peter Carmichael, now head of the Gestapo-like Watch, the female first person voice is here, though, that of his ward, Elvira Royston, whom Carmichael took under his wing after the murder of her father in the line of duty eleven years before. She has been well educated and about to be “presented” to the Queen as a debutante under the sponsorship of the mother of her friend, Betsy Maynard. She nevertheless feels a slight fraud. Indeed at times her cockney accent slips out. All this is well worked into, and used in, the plot by Walton, which involves Elvira’s accidental brush with the fringes of a conspiracy to effect a coup d’état leading to an attempt to discredit and remove Carmichael from his post. He himself has reasons to fear investigation, being the centre of the “Inner Watch” which organises, when it can, the escape of Jews and other innocents to Ireland. Unlike in Farthing and Ha’penny we did get a mention here of Mosleyites and I suspect in her portrayal here of the Duke of Windsor Walton has him bang to rights.

The resolution is well tied-in with the beginning of the trilogy in Farthing but seemed perhaps a little too easily won.

Pedant’s corner:- I noticed a “fitted” but “fit” came up elsewhere as the past tense. England was occasionally used incorrectly in direct speech as interchangeable with Britain (but the characters are all English and would perhaps have done so. It is nevertheless an intensely annoying habit.) Cross fire (it’s usually rendered as crossfire,) “each department had their own exit and entrance” (each department had its own exit and entrance,) mementos (mementoes?) the band were playing (the band was playing,) coup d’etat (coup d’état,) a Turkey carpet (Turkish carpet?) hung (hanged,) Heath Row (Heathrow.)
Addendum to Ha’penny’s pedant’s corner:- Walton’s text in that book said the ha’penny coin had a picture of HMS Victory on its obverse. It was Drake’s ship the Golden Hind.