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!)

In Nostalgia by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam the nostalgia of the title is a drug that takes you back to earlier times. This may not always be a good idea.
T R Napper’s An Advanced Guide to Successful Price-Fixing in Extraterrestrial Betting Markets features a mathematical prodigy imagining creating bets about his behaviour on a market for extraterrestrials. He is surprised when an alien turns up to collect. (He has neglected to take his medication, though.)
The Ferry Man by Pandora Hope¹ is inspired by one of the byways of Norse mythology. A ferry captain has the power to reverse the usual attraction of a siren for the unwary.
In Tribute by Christien Gholson² a mysterious creature is puzzled by why others bring some of their kind to his world to die. While it is a different story entirely, I noticed (of course, I would) that this has some tonal and descriptive similarities to Dusk, the story of mine that appeared in Nova Scotia.
Fish on Friday by Neil Williamson is an amuse bouche set out as a transcript of a phone call from a state apparatchik in an independent Scotland to a Ms MacArthur who is something of a refusenik of the benefits, dietary and otherwise, of the regime.

Pedant’s corner:-
¹ Pandora Hope sounds very pseudonymous to me.
² Can anyone else not see this? (Can no-one else see this?) Kaayam (Kaayem.)

Marielena by Nina Allan¹
Noah Wahid, an asylum seeker, while waiting for his permission to remain, spends the days in an endless round of impoverished futility and seeing the face of Marielena, the girl he left behind, in nearly everyone he meets. The story hinges on Noah’s encounter with a refugee from the future.

A Minute and a Half by Jay O’Connell²
The tale of how Evan came to be in sole charge of a two year old daughter he hadn’t known about. He’s taken programmers, which, in a very intrusive info dump, we are told are able to sculpt human wetware in accordance to user input parameters. Or are they just hallucinogens?

Bone Deep by S L Nickerson
A woman with a medical condition where her flesh is turning to bone can only access the treatment she needs by having sponsors’ logos tattooed onto her. (Don’t give the buggers ideas is what I say.)

Dark on a Darkling Earth by T R Napper
In a world of perpetual war where memory has to be stored on electronic cards or it is lost, an old man falls into the orbit of a group of soldiers.

The Faces Between Us by Julie C Day
Is set in an Oregon where ghosts live on in ashes and Larry and Amber try to find the way “through” by snorting them.

Songs Like Freight Trains by Sam J Miller
Christine no longer listens to music. Ariel, her friend from her teenage years taught her the trick of time travel via song. But Christine’s daughter yearns to dance.

¹ Imposter. Narrator Noah tells us his vocal command of English is not good but uses words like annunciates. Pita bread is usually spelled pitta.
² Cannoboloid (????) I suspect this should be cannabinoid.