British Library, 2019, 220 p, including a v p Introduction by Timothy C Baker, and Wild September a vi p article by MacPherson. First published in 1936. Reviewed for Interzone 290-291, Summer 2021.

In the mid- to late twentieth century Science Fiction by Scottish authors was all but invisible. Only four names spring to mind as being much in evidence at the time; J T McIntosh (who did though manage to publish over 20 SF novels,) Angus McVicar – whose output was aimed at YA readers (such books were called juvenile at the time) – and a reprint in the early 1960s of David Lindsay’s 1920 novel A Voyage to Arcturus, which despite its impeccably Science-Fictional title was arguably more of a fantasy than SF as such. Alasdair Gray produced his monumental Lanark in 1981 but that was such a unique novel (or four novels) that it hardly represented a trend or a model practicable to aspire to. And again it leaned towards fantasy, though some of his short stories were more recognisably SF. A tendency towards fantasy and horror in Scottish fiction had always been present – taking in George MacDonald’s Lilith etc and some of Robert Louis Stevenson’s stories (notably of course The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) – as was the tale of the supernatural or, at least, encounters with the devil, whose origins go back even further than Victorian times. Forty to fifty years ago though, of evidence of SF either in that present or from earlier decades, there was barely a trace, neither as reprints nor on library shelves. Not until Polygon’s republishing of the novels of Lewis Grassic Gibbon – some of them published originally under his real name of J Leslie Mitchell – did I become aware that there had indeed been a Scottish tradition of writing SF before the appearance of Iain (M) Banks. Ken Macleod swiftly followed him. That dam having been broken by their success in the field, there are as of now a fair few Scots active in the genre.

With Ian Macpherson’s Wild Harbour, the British Library, whose new editions of British Crime Classics from the 1930s have brightened up bookshop shelves with vibrant Art Deco style covers redolent of the railway posters of that decade, has pulled another long languishing work of Scottish Science Fiction out of obscurity.

The book was written in the shadow of the looming Second World War. In it, something has happened in Europe and war has been declared, exactly what and between whom is unspecified. The novel starts sometime after with protagonist Hugh and his wife Terry being woken up in the middle of the night by the sound (and sight) of gunfire in the distance, towards Inverness. It soon becomes obvious they are taking refuge in a cave – the text goes on to lay out how well they had customised it to the requirements of living in the wild – as an escape and hiding place from the outside world. Hugh had had no inclination to fight in a war, had refused to follow the instructions of his call-up papers and the pair made off into the country to fend for themselves. Despite his aversion to war Hugh nevertheless has to kill animals to survive, hunting deer, fishing, snaring the odd rabbit.

The text takes the form of diary entries by Hugh with chapter titles which usually consist only of dates (from 15 May 1944 – 11 October) except for the final one, Night. Oddly, despite numerous mentions of salting of deer for the winter, when October comes we are told they have run out of meat.

In an observation on modern humans’ capacity to get by unaided that has even more relevance these days Hugh remembers an acquaintance from before the war telling him, “Our senses are blunted. We depend on a multitude of people to make our clothes and food and tools for us. We have noses that can’t smell, ears that are deaf -”

The pair’s struggle to survive and maintain their seclusion is threatened by human intruders into their surroundings, intruders whose shadowy nature and motivations only heighten the sense of threat. In this context Wild Harbour prefigures British SF’s “cosy” catastrophes of the 1950s.

The Introduction tells us, “Place is formative in all Macpherson’s novels, but the human relationship with place is never an easy one.” That is a statement that could be made about the Scottish novel in general. Another Scottish novelistic trait displayed here is a close attention to depiction of the land.

The writing is of its time, though, and the feel very reminiscent of Gibbon’s slightly earlier SF novels Three Go Back and Gay Hunter, both of which involve sojourns in almost deserted countryside, but also of John Buchan’s John Macnab, (plus there is the merest whiff of Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male.) Macpherson, however, has an absurd overfondness for the phrase “commenced to” and from the perspective of over 80 years after publication it is noticeable that Terry’s contribution to the pair’s survival is confined almost entirely to the domestic sphere, within the cave.

In valediction, Macpherson offers us the thought that, “We are victors over fate when we choose well, though it destroy us.”

A subsequent article by Macpherson, entitled Wild September, which was published in September 1940, rounds off this edition, and in it he reflects on the actual war which started in 1939.

As Science Fiction, though, Wild Harbour on balance falls down. Its background is too sketchy and there is no real necessity for such a story to be placed in a putative future (except for the international situation at the time it was written.) It could as easily have been a present-day narrative with a more mundane reason than dodging conscription for escaping to the hills. However, that might be argued to be an unwarranted criticism as it projects twenty-first century ideas onto an older text and a work of SF is always about the time it was written, never the future. As a historical curiosity and a reminder that SF by Scottish writers has an extended history Wild Harbour is welcome. Modern SF readers, though, might prefer more meat on its bones.

Pedant’s corner:- in the Introduction; “depictions of violence in books bears little relation to” (depictions …. bear little relationship to.) Elsewhere; a lower case letter at the start of a sentence after a question mark at the end of the previous one, ditto after an exclamation mark, digged (dug,) “‘there didn’t use to be’” (used to be,) a switch of tense from past to present then back, “where I sunk his rifle” (where I had sunk his rifle,)

Headline Review, 1996, 285 p.

This, Greig’s second novel, takes as its template John Buchan’s John Macnab which I reviewed here. Once again three men – but this time not “gentlemen” – form an alliance to poach a salmon, a brace of grouse and a stag respectively from three different estates, Mavor, Inchallian and Balmoral, and then deliver the poached items back to the “owners”, as a challenge to “absentee landowners and the Criminal Justice Act” and as a wager to the three estates’ owners; issuing a statement to this effect in the Scotsman newspaper. The “John Macnab” here comprises at first Neil Lindores, Murray Hamilton and Alasdair Sutherland, each with his own special talent useful for the enterprise, but not long after arriving in “a small Highland town” Lindores is sussed out by local journalist Kirsty Fowler who is excited by the project and offers to help them.

Greig’s background in climbing comes to the fore in his description of the scramble needed to get to the pool for the salmon poach and his life as a poet in the sentence, “Seldom had a celebration broken up so fast, as if someone had announced an evening of performance poetry would commence in thirty seconds.”

His descriptions of landscape are loving and there is the odd reflection on the condition of Scotland. On feeling himself squeezed as at the narrow waist of an hour-glass with more past than future as the minutes ran through Neil thinks, “What a depressingly Scottish image. Its negativity was another thing that was true about his country. It went along with tholing, bearing, putting up with, and taking a certain satisfaction in the expected bad news when it came.” Yes indeed. That’s Calvinism for you. Neil does go on, though, to sense “it was a wrong picture. He was groping for another, still true but more affirmative.” At another point, “He hugged Murray. This was a first – they were Scottish, after all.”

The big problem John Macnab faces here is Balmoral. It is late summer and HRH is in residence. Consequently the place is hoaching with Special Services, Army and Police as well as the usual ghillies and gamekeepers. The authorities cannot ignore the possibility that John Macnab is merely a cover for a terrorist attempt on HRH’s life.

The text occasionally refers to Buchan’s novel, as it has to, and even critiques it in mentioning that Buchan’s women are really just chaps – though with (small) breasts. Greig’s intent is somewhat different; and his women are certainly far from chaps. Kirsty is as rounded and complex a character as you could wish (such women are a common factor in Greig’s novels) and is thoroughly involved in the poaching efforts – as are Sutherland’s and Hamilton’s wives and the former’s family – at least in the second one. Sutherland’s wife, though she has had an affair, tells Kirsty she would kill him if he were to do the same. Ellen Stobo, a policewoman attached to the security services but who finds herself coming to an understanding of John Macnab, is also well drawn. To be fair to Buchan he was writing adventure tales for a male audience in a time that was less aware. Greig is by far the better examiner of the human condition though.

The John Macnab template – while driving the events of the plot – at times gets in the way of Greig’s greater facility with personal relationships but in the end his own concerns overwhelm Buchan’s. Still, he nearly overdoes it, veering very close to the tradition of the Scottish sentimental novel (compare Iain Banks’s Espedair Street,) in the final pages. But he is too canny to yield a conventional ending.

That template means that The Return of John Macnab is not quite up there with Greig’s best – all the other novels of his I have read; see “Andrew Greig” in my categories – but for an exploration of human uncertainties, hesitations, lust for life and willingness to take risks, emotional as well as physical, it’s still pretty damn good.

Pedant’s corner:- midgies (midges – which spelling does occur in the book once but otherwise with the extraneous “i”,) swopped (swapped,) “‘but there a problem comes with it’” (but there’s a problem,) autogiro (autogyro,) hoochin’ (usually spelled – and pronounced – hoachin’,) the main work party were loading gear (the party was,) none of the computer systems were down (none was down,) a missing end quote mark.

Penguin, 2007, 159 p. One of the 100 best Scottish books. Borrowed from a threatened library.

This is another story which, like Stevenson’s “Jekyll and Hyde” being familiar from film and television, people perhaps think they know.

In it, Richard Hannay begins as a bored ex-patriate in London who perhaps should have been careful what he wished for. His upstairs neighbour, who calls himself Franklin P Scudder, a man who refers to “the Jew” being behind the conspiracy he regales Hannay with, begs for shelter in Hannay’s flat for a few days till he can thwart said conspiracy. But of course Hannay returns to the flat one day to find Scudder dead and so has to flee under suspicion of murder. The majority of the novel then consists in Hannay being chased around southern Scotland in what is now Dumfries and Galloway getting into and out of various scrapes and predicaments which are sometimes evaded too handily, meanwhile solving the puzzle of the thirty-nine steps and disrupting the plans of his adversaries of the Black Stone. It all rattles along at a glorious pace without much pause for thought and incidentally allows descriptions of the landscape he flees through; a common Scottish authorial trait.

Unlike all three film adaptations I have seen – and the most recent TV one – there is not a woman companion in sight. Barring a wifie who provides shelter to Hannay one night there aren’t any women at all. It does, though, have the merit of being able to be read quickly.

I can only think that this creeps into that 100 best list for historical reasons. It has no literary pretensions. Buchan himself, in his preface (addressed to Thomas Arthur Nelson) refers to it as “the type of tale which Americans call the ‘dime novel,’ and which we know as the ‘shocker’”.

Once again the prose shows itself to be of its time: as in John Macnab, there are several unflattering mentions of Jews not in particular but as a type, and a “you’re a white man”, plus also here a Greek is referred to as a dago.

I note, too, a “minutes later” count of six or seven.

Pedant’s corner:- There were several editions at the library (they’re running a Buchan competition.) I chose this one because I liked the 1930s style of its cover. Yet the book was first published in 1915. Moreover the biplane is wrong. The text several times emphasises that Hannay is being chased by a monoplane. Buluwayo (Bulawayo,) Liepsic (context suggested Liepzig,) jiffey (jiffy,) – were these words spelled that way in the 1910s? – rung (rang,) whiskys (whiskies,) Karolides’ (Karolides’s.)