(Review written February 2016. ‘The Enigma of Amigara Fault’ was previously listed separately on Goodreads; this is a review of that story only.)
An ex(Review written February 2016. ‘The Enigma of Amigara Fault’ was previously listed separately on Goodreads; this is a review of that story only.)
An extremely creepy tale of horror in graphic (mini-)novel form. The characters are drawn to Amigara Mountain, where holes shaped like people have inexplicably appeared in the mountainside rock. Like many who have reviewed this, I would've liked some more explanation; the idea of the holes being an exact fit for certain people - and indeed, how people recognise these holes are 'theirs' when an individual's specific outline is surely not so distinctive anyone would spot it immediately in this context - is somewhat glossed over, but the ending wraps up the gruesomeness of the premise so completely it doesn't really matter much....more
(Review written January 2019. Nina Allan’s novelette Neptune’s Trident was previously listed on Goodreads as a separate book; looks like that listing (Review written January 2019. Nina Allan’s novelette Neptune’s Trident was previously listed on Goodreads as a separate book; looks like that listing has now been combined into the magazine issue it was published in. This is a review of Neptune’s Trident only.)
Originally published in issue 129 of Clarkesworld magazine, Neptune's Trident is a science fiction novelette. It's set in a future version of Scotland in which a series of disasters and slow changes have precipitated the breakdown of society as we know it. There's also the phenomenon of the 'flukes', people afflicted by a new sort of infection. Some believe it to be a form of alien invasion, but its exact nature is difficult to define. Caitlin compares it to cancer. At one point, a character makes it sound like one version of a file being overwritten by another: 'their template placed over ours... a kind of bleed-through'.
This story has a similar feel to 'The Common Tongue, the Present Tense, the Known', and like Noemi in that story, the protagonist Caitlin makes a living by scavenging valuable objects from the polluted coast. She also cares for her partner, Steph, who is one of the infected, and who often (increasingly often) glitches into what Caitlin calls 'not-Steph'. (The transition is described in vivid, chilling terms: 'she turned slowly away from the kitchen counter, moving in jerky increments, like a robot... [her] words slightly blurred, as if two identical recordings of her voice were being played over each other, a millisecond apart'.) One day, while selling her finds at the local market, Caitlin meets a parson – a man still wearing a dog collar despite the disintegration of old religions. At first, she takes pity on him, but it soon becomes clear he has extreme views about the flukes, and that his arrival will change the quiet community.
The more explicitly science-fictional of Allan's stories are not usually my favourites, but I do appreciate their attention to detail. Allan's worldbuilding always focuses more on the things that would actually matter to real people, in their day-to-day lives, than stuff like technology and governance. It's the smallest things that make Neptune's Trident real: Caitlin's memories of watching horror films with her brother; the Johnson's shampoo she finds at the beach; the parson's resemblance to a man Caitlin's mother once had a relationship with. The ambiguous ending reflects the void at the heart of this new society, the stillness and silence of the ancient Earth in the face of human disaster....more
Emily is head of housekeeping at a prestigious London hotel, soon to play host to two astronauts who will be part of a manned mission to Mars. The preEmily is head of housekeeping at a prestigious London hotel, soon to play host to two astronauts who will be part of a manned mission to Mars. The previous attempt – thirty years earlier – ended disastrously, killing the crew. Emily's mum, whom she calls Moolie, was also the victim of a disaster. She was a physicist, hired to analyse materials found in the aftermath of an aeroplane crash. Among them were radioactive substances which have left Moolie's system, as Emily puts it, 'riddled with wrongness'; at 52, she has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's and a host of physical ailments.
The title of the story is also the title of a book. When I came to that detail, I knew I was really going to like this story. The Art of Space Travel (the in-story book) has been in the family since Emily was a child; she used to enjoy folding out the elaborate star maps. Then, one Tuesday, Moolie tells her that not only did the book belong to Emily's father, but that he was also an astronaut, part of the failed, fatal Mars mission.
This is a typically great short story from Nina Allan, and as ever, her focus is firmly on the characters and their relationships, with the science-fiction element merely acting as a backdrop. The narrative concentrates on Emily's bond with Moolie, and her efforts to identify her father. Perhaps the resolution is a little glib, but I didn't mind because I loved Emily's voice so much.
Found via Eugene Lim's A Year in Reading at The Millions: 'It’s an obscure book about being obscure—or at least it is a book about occupying forgottenFound via Eugene Lim's A Year in Reading at The Millions: 'It’s an obscure book about being obscure—or at least it is a book about occupying forgotten interstitial spaces and about being of and among technological detritus. In Hampton’s world we live our lives not in streets, schools, libraries, parks, or other public commons but online and in Barnes & Nobles, Starbucks, malls, parking lots, and other privatized spaces; that is, Hampton shows us a familiar world.'
aleatory (adj.): depending on the throw of a dice or on chance; random
For a long time I have aspired to be not a guest, but nobody.
When I later heard about people who lived in shopping malls and parking structures, sometimes for years without being noticed, I knew that this was my future calling to me. I was meant to live in a crevice, like a bug. I was meant to go unnoticed in the midst of a crowd.
On the radio they are saying, “Now our disbelief is our home.” I am never quite sure anymore who is talking. The blinds of a window move as I drive by. There’s a square of darkness like Halloween chocolate. I see a face, but it’s far away. It doesn’t seem to belong to anybody.
Hobbies: Making slow progress toward figures in dreams. Driving. Pantomiming an ongoing scream.
Then, after washing the dishes, each of us inside a life adjacent to and occasionally overlapping others, we proceed farther into the night.
I buy something to eat. The plastic I throw away clings to me. I wipe it on my knee and it falls by my feet. Its helplessness reminds me of people.
A shape is slumped on the shoulder. Passing it at speed, I look for a body. I don’t see any limbs, but I sense there are limbs to be seen.
The place where I am living is the kind of place about which I would think, were I passing through it on my way to the place where I live, I would never live there.
I watch a young girl in Claire’s prepare to have her ears pierced. She sits on a high stool while her mother, holding a phone, captures a video. On the screen of her mother’s phone the girl has an expression like she is about to receive a terrifying message from a version of herself.
I go into the mall without my wallet, the same way I’d go into a friend’s house or a surgery. I leave without anything more tangible than what I entered with, though I leave feeling heavy.
Casinos, for as long as I can remember, have attracted me. I do not know why, except that I am also drawn along the same horizon toward abandoned buildings and cemeteries and vast shopping malls. Places of vanishing and becoming. Places that seem like they might be harboring a vast, forgotten area now filled with mildew, or an orange fungus.
I imagine that every time I click “submit” on a website and nothing happens, a small piece of garbage is generated and dropped on a mall parking lot.
They can tell that I’m trailing off, mentally. They can tell that long pauses have inserted themselves like darkness between my thoughts, that between my thoughts there’s a night and that the night refuses to move, it’s the eve of something and the dog is still barking and the small light has been taken away.
My students no longer look up when I enter the room. I am just more room.
I wonder if a person can be from an experience rather than a place. I feel like I might be from the experience of walking alone on a narrow road through a forest, or from waking up before everybody else and feeling like the only person alive, or from listening in the dark to ripe apples falling off a tree and landing on dry grass, which I once did all night.
I am watching to see who I will turn out to be. I never turn out to be anybody, particularly, and to be honest, this makes me glad.
Internet reads, 2 of 2: a very fun online story in which a zombie epidemic is charted through two internet-based mediums: the Facebook posts of a womaInternet reads, 2 of 2: a very fun online story in which a zombie epidemic is charted through two internet-based mediums: the Facebook posts of a woman who may be infected, and the emails of a group of Facebook executives debating the introduction of a feature allowing users to tag their friends as zombies. As soon as I read the beginning, I had to read all of it immediately. I loved it and I wish it'd been longer. Found via Karen's review....more
(Incidentally, I read this entirely on trains.) This short story, verging on novella length, is an odd mixture that doesn't fully work, and I have to (Incidentally, I read this entirely on trains.) This short story, verging on novella length, is an odd mixture that doesn't fully work, and I have to agree with other reviewers that the translation doesn't seem to be very good, with awkward phrases and idioms that have either been translated incorrectly or just don't make sense in English. There's an awkwardness in the themes, too: the idea of sentient trains running 'off the tracks' is, at points, so silly that it's difficult to believe this is supposed to be a story for adults - but Rupert's brain damage wouldn't exactly fit very well into a story for kids. Despite all of this, however, I found something about the story gripping, effective and atmospheric enough that I enjoyed it. Karen's review brought this to my attention, and I agree with her that while parts of it might feel like a bit of a drag, it's worth reading. ...more
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