GHOSTWRITTEN, by Ronald Malfi

My exploration of Ronald Malfi’s works continues with this collection of four short stories that are loosely linked to each other through the mention of an element present in the previous one and also through the common denominator of books, since all four of them revolve around a book in some way.

THE SKIN OF HER TEETH focuses on the frantic attempts of book agent Gloria to bring to completion a movie script adapted from a successful novel. Not having heard any news from the writer, McElroy, she decides to visit him in his remote retreat and here she finds the man well beyond the verge of madness because he’s convinced that the original book possesses an evil will of its own and does not want any of its narrative details to be changed.  With the deadline looming ever closer, Gloria decides to take the matter into her own hands, only to discover that probably McElroy was not crazy at all….

Cursed books are nothing new in fiction, but The Skin of her Teeth (the fictional book that gives this story its title) is something quite different, and the way it manages to assert its own will is both creepy and intriguing, although I have to admit that I was even more appalled by Gloria’s attitude toward any obstacle on her path and the way she manipulates people with little or no though about their feelings, particularly where her life partner is concerned.

For me the true horror in this story did not come from the “things that go bump in the night”, although there is a good measure of that in here, but rather from the callous way in which Gloria goes about in life practically steamrolling over other people – and here I have to admit that I would not have minded seeing her getting her just deserts….

THE DARK BROTHERS’ LAST RIDE was a weird, almost psychedelic experience: it tells the story of Danny and Tommy Drake, petty criminals who are hired to deliver a rare, precious book to a mysterious client in a remote location, following a precise – if circuitous – itinerary. The warning they receive about not opening the briefcase containing the book, ever, does not agree with Tommy, the more volatile of the two, so that when he finally gives in to the temptation things start going from bad to worse for the two of them, transforming the trip into something of a journey to hell.

Where the strange, freaky places visited and events witnessed by the two brothers are the “meat” of this story, its backbone is represented by the exploration of Danny and Tommy’s personalities and of their shared past, which also includes a drug-crazed, abusive father who still looms like a specter just out of the corner of the eye.  The relationship between them is not an easy one, what with Tommy always being on a short fuse and often compromising their “jobs”, and with Danny who does care for his wayward brother but still feels like his weight is dragging him down.  There is a poignant quality in this relationship that at times feels more important than the actual task at hand and the oh-so-outlandish discoveries the brothers make on the journey.

THIS BOOK BELONGS TO OLO focuses on the creepiest kid I even encountered on my bookish travels: Bartholomew (“Olo”) Tiptree is a 10-year old child clearly suffering from the neglect of his super-busy parents and left to fend for himself in the vastnes of Helix House.  When he approaches other kids at a nearby park inviting them to his birthday party, we understand immediately that something is terribly wrong with Olo and with the strange “book” he put together himself.  It’s therefore surprising to see a good number of these children accepting the invitation, and the atmosphere becomes all the more disturbing thanks to the strange mannequins adorning Olo’s lawn and the news about the recent disappearance of his at-home teacher.  What happens during the birthday party, however, takes on the shades of a veritable nightmare.

I must confess I struggled with my feelings about Olo’s character because if on one side I could sympathize for his loneliness and the detached way his parents interacted with him, on the other his actions are those of a consummated psychopath who turned his loneliness into a form of self-centered absorption that left me thoroughly chilled – not to mention claustrophobic: read the story and you will understand why…

THE STORY does not focus on an actual book like its predecessors, but rather on the concept of storytelling – although in a unique way. Taking inspiration from the famous “choose your adventure” games it takes main character Grady into a spiral of disorientation and madness as his life seems to unravel before his very eyes.  An unexpected call informs Grady that his friend Taryn took her own life: trying to understand what happened to her to bring her to such an extreme act, Grady discovers her involvement into The Story, a sort of real-life game where the players’ choices impact the reality of their existence; determined to understand what happened during Taryn’s last days, Grady enters the game as well (or rather, the Story finds him…) with unpredictable results.

It’s impossible to say more about this story without incurring in spoilers, but it’s one of the mind mind-bending tales I happened to read, one where you end up questioning the fabric of reality and the worth of personal choices – provided that such a thing exists… 😉

Another demonstration of Ronald Malfi’s creative skills, this collection is an incredible journey through the fantastic and the scary, blended with some intriguing human elements. To be sure, not the last of my forays into this author’s production.

My Rating:

TOUCHSTONES: A COLLECTION, by Stephanie Burgis

I received this story collection from the author, in exchange for an honest review.

This time around, the delightful surprise in receiving Stephanie Burgis’ new work to read and review was compounded by the discovery that it was a collection of short stories and, more important still, that they went in quite unexpected directions – narratively speaking – from this author’s usually light and playful style.  Which does not mean, of course, that you will not find some of her spirited and plucky heroines here, or that you will not travel through some of her Regency-inspired worlds: there is that, of course, but also some darker stories and themes that follow the time-honored fairy tale pattern of mixing darkness and light for added narrative depth.

And speaking of fairy tales, Touchstones contains not one but two retellings of the Cinderella myth, a longer one where the girl in question is quite reluctant to accept her destiny, and a shorter story that takes a very, very unexpected direction: in both instances I was thoroughly amused at the way Ms. Burgis turned the well known fable upside down, particularly in The Wrong Foot where we get a closer look at the famous Prince Charming only to discover that he’s… well, no, find out for yourselves! 😉

Staying with the lighter mood of the collection, The Disastrous Debut of Agatha Tremain is a fun romp through the idiosyncrasies of Regency society thanks to a spirited girl and her evil aunt, very much in line with the author’s previous offerings, while The Art of Deception follows a somewhat unlikely sword master and his friend as they move through the treacherous waters of a magical academy.  On the other hand, Love You, Flatmate is set in our present world during the Covid outbreak, but it will make you smile as you consider the effects of forced cohabitation between… ahem… different species.

For the darker themes, I would like to mention Dreaming Harry, in which we discover that a child’s imagination, when fueled by the wrong images (and a particular accident at the time of birth…) can be a quite dangerous thing.  Dancing in the Dark is a very poignant story about loss and the way a friendly ghost can assuage it. And again, True Names will take you on the harrowing path traveled by a young woman whose unexpected visitor brings a deadly threat.  My favorite story, however, is House of Secrets: the dark journey of a very special girl whose distant father you will come to hate and despise as much as I did.

Once again, Stephanie Burgis managed to take me out of this world into her special realms, in a variegated tour that proved to be both amusing and shocking, whimsical and weird, but always, always totally engaging:  I mentioned only a handful of the stories included in this collection, but there are many more that will take you down unusual paths and fuel your imagination.

If you already encountered her works, you will find in Touchstones her trademark narrative skills; if she’s a new-to-you author, this anthology might very well be the way to get to know her writing. In each case, it will be a reading experience not to be missed…

My Rating:

THE GULP (Tales from the Gulp #1), by Alan Baxter #wyrdandwonder

Stories’ collections can be a little tricky, sometimes, because not all of the offerings might encounter the reader’s tastes, but The Gulp did not suffer from this problem for two important reasons: the five short stories in this anthology revolve around a common element – the Australian city of Gulpepper – and the weird horror theme that permeates the collection, whose almost-Lovecraftian feel makes for a delightfully uneasy read.

Gulpepper is a pleasant seaside city on the Australian coast, but while it might be nice to pass through it, staying there carries a good number of problems: the inhabitants look friendly enough on the surface, but on closer inspection there is something… not right about them, something the casual visitors cannot put their finger on, but still proves unsettling.  The townspeople refer to the city as ‘the Gulp’, often mentioning that it has the tendency to “swallow” people, almost a warning about moving on as quickly as one can…

Unfortunately, not everyone heeds that warning, as it happens to Rich in Out of a Rim: he’s training to become a delivery van driver, and when a mechanical problem forces him and his instructor George to stay overnight in Gulpepper, Rich labels George’s warnings as an old man’s fancy – or even an attempt at hazing the newbie – and so decides to have a night on the town, while George refuses to leave the safety of the truck’s cab.  What Rich will experience cannot be labeled as horror with any certainty – although he finds himself facing some harrowing circumstances – but his exploration of Gulpepper and its inhabitants reveals the creepiness of the town and its people through a series of encounters that lay the tone and set the background for the rest of the book.

The second story, Mother in Bloom, deals with two siblings, Maddy and Zack, whose ailing mother just died: firmly set on not letting the authorities know of the woman’s demise, to avoid being consigned to social services, the two of them must find a way of disposing of the body, carrying on as normally as possible until Maddy will turn eighteen and be free to take care of Zack as her guardian.  Having a dead body in the house would be a disturbing experience for everyone, but the changes the kids’ mother’s corpse undergoes are part of the macabre tone of the story, together with Maddy and Zack’s emotional removal from the loss, due to their mother’s character which is often described as tyrannical and spiteful.  And if that’s not enough, the dreadful changes in the corpse point toward a supernatural factor that will compel the two kids (and particularly Zack) toward some truly appalling actions…

The Band Plays On sees a quartet of tourists become enthralled by a local band, Blind Eye Moon, whose performance in town encourages the four of them to stay longer than anticipated, accepting the band’s hospitality in their lavish mansion. A party fueled by alcohol and music leads to some very striking dreams that seem to hint at a dark past and whose cosmic horror quality compels one of the travelers, Patrick, to try and steer his friends away from Gulpepper and the magnetic influence of the band’s members.  But it might be already too late for that, because The Gulp has a tendency to swallow the unwary, indeed. This third story marks a definite progression toward horror, with its hints at vampiric possession and Lovecraftian elements, and it definitely enhances the sense of suffocating dread at the roots of this collection.

The fourth offering, 48 to Go, starts in a very mundane way as Dace, who works as a courier for the gangster lord Carter, is robbed of his precious cargo while trying to woo a young lady.  The only way to get back in Carter’s good graces is to refund the monetary loss, and to do so in the short time allotted by the boss – 48 hours – Dace sets his sights on robbing an elderly couple rumored to have huge sums of money hidden in their house. The man’s plan and preparations have something of a funny flavor, which carries on until the start of his undertaking, when the sheer number of setbacks and unexpected obstacles drives him to become much more than ruthless and callous.  Here the horror is all too human, and despite the lack of supernatural elements feels even more terrifying.

Rock Fisher is the final offering in this anthology and it goes back to a supernatural theme laced with a sizable dash of body horror as expert fisherman Troy comes back home with a strange “egg” which, once set in his aquarium, starts to grow and exert a compelling attraction on him, to the exclusion of any other ties to family or friends.

The Gulp offers a very intriguing – if creepy – setting for these stories, often adding other elements that remain as background detail but hint at much more and show the reader that the well of horror remains mostly untapped here. The dichotomy between the apparently normal surface and the eerie depths of the city and its people is where the uneasiness – and then the fear – comes from, trapping the reader into a compulsive immersion in these stories and the sensation to be just as imprisoned as the hapless characters depicted there. 

After discovering this author and this intriguing collection, I know I will look forward to the upcoming publication of the new collection of stories set in Gulpepper: hopefully I will be able to find my way out once more and not be swallowed by the Gulp… 😉

My Rating:

Image art by chic2view on 123RF.com

IF IT BLEEDS, by Stephen King

In recent times I have gone back to reading the works of Stephen King after a long hiatus due to a few less-than-satisfactory novels, so now I’m looking forward to seeing what I missed so far. The more recent The Institute and The Outsider seemed to mark the return of the old “King magic”, and when I saw that one of the short stories included in this volume featured the character of Holly Gibney, who also had a role in Mr. Mercedes (another happy find), I wasted no time in acquiring If It Bleeds.

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The first story in this collection is MR. HARRIGAN’S PHONE and from the very first pages I could see that it was indeed a “vintage King” sort of tale.  Teenager Craig earns some pocket money by doing a few chores for eccentric neighbor Mr. Harrigan, whose habit of gifting Craig with lottery tickets finally pays with a huge win: to show his gratitude, Craig uses part of the money to buy an iPhone for Mr. Harrigan, whose initial disdain for technology quickly turns into fascination for the opportunities offered by the Web. At Harrigan’s sudden death, a sorrowful Craig decides to slip the phone into his friend’s jacket before the coffin is closed: what he would never have expected is to still be able to stay in communication with his old mentor – well, sort of, since this is a King story…

Mr. Harrigan’s Phone possesses the classic flavor of most of Stephen King’s narrative: first of all the story in set in a small town, peopled with the kind of quirky characters that are the author’s trademark; then there is the weird element of the phone calls going through even when the cellphone battery should be all but dead. Most important is of course the description of the world through the eyes of a growing teenager: King is one of the writers who can portray younger characters with both understanding and authenticity, and Craig is no exception, particularly in the poignant representation of his grief at the death of Mr. Harrigan, and the very human desire to hear the old man’s voice once again through the voicemail recording on the phone.  Last but not least is an interesting consideration on our relationship with technology and the way it’s changing us – to use old Mr. Harrigan’s own words:

Thoreau said that we don’t own things; things own us. Every new object – whether it’s a home, a car, a television, or fancy phone like that one – is something more we must carry on our backs.

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The second story, THE LIFE OF CHUCK, is a truly weird one and I struggled to understand it until the end, where everything became clear: for this reason I prefer to say as little as I can about it, since it must be appreciated first-hand.  This tale is composed of three separate parts that move backward in time and focus on the figure of Charles “Chuck” Krantz,  his too-short life and the way it affects the world.   There is a definite surreal quality to this story, and not just because it retraces time from what looks like the end of the universe to a fundamental episode in Chuck’s life.  The key to the whole scenario lies in understanding how our experiences contribute to the creation of the world around us and how they can influence it – even in ways we cannot imagine…

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IF IT BLEEDS, the longest piece in the anthology, is loosely connected to The Outsider in that it shows the existence of a creature similar to the novel’s shape-shifting predator, one thriving on the pain and anguish brought on by tragedies – and when there are none to feed on from, creating them to satisfy its hunger.  Private investigator Holly Gibney, now the head of the Finders Keepers agency, sets on a dangerous chase that might cost her her life.

My first encounter with Holly Gibney was in The Outsider and back then – before I read Mr. Mercedes, where her character appears for the first time – I was unable to truly appreciate her for lack of background information. Now that I know where she comes from and what makes her tick, I can say I enjoyed very much her personality, her constant struggle with the psychological problems afflicting her and her tenacity in overcoming them – not to mention her dogged determination in finding the creature and, if possible, freeing the world from the danger it represents, no matter the personal cost.   Where If It Bleeds is a unique blend of horror and detective work, its true strength lies in the depiction of Holly and the double struggle with the investigation on this elusive and dangerous individual on one side and with her not-so-understanding family on the other.  If nothing else, this story made it even more imperative that I read as soon as possible the other two novels following Mr. Mercedes, because I want to learn more about Holly.

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The last offering is RAT, a story imbued with a strong sensation of deja-vu, in the sense that there is a very ominous progression in the journey of struggling writer Drew Larson whose previous attempts at a full-length novel have ended in misery and depression.  One day Drew is struck by a fully-formed idea for a novel, and to be certain that no distractions will interfere with his creative processes, he retires to an isolated cabin in the mountains, where a huge storm and a dangerous bout of flu will threaten both his survival and his mental sanity.   

Anyone familiar with King’s own The Shining will feel certain that the sinister line-up of circumstances is bound to create the “perfect storm” that will have nothing to do with the one raging outside the cabin and everything to do with the man’s reactions to the dread of writer’s block.  Unlike Jack Torrance in The Shining, Larson is not besieged by his inner demons – apart, that is, from the terror of finding himself stuck again at a loss for the right words to express himself – but faces a weird encounter with the titular rat, and the possibility of  striking a fever-induced bargain with unforeseeable consequences…

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This collection represents the fourth volume in the journey of my “reconciliation” with Stephen King’s works, and the progression so far has proven to be quite positive. Let’s hope it keeps going strong 🙂

My Rating:

Short Story: NIGHTINGALE (from Galactic North), by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space trilogy is one of the most intriguing (and challenging!) reads I ever encountered, but it happened several years ago so that time has blurred my memory of it considerably, and the complexity of the narrative context in which this space opera series is set made it difficult for me to retain more than a few of the myriad details of that multifaceted tapestry. A re-read is something I might enjoy one of these days, and I think this collection of longer stories from that same universe might be the best way to re-introduce myself with the characters and the wide, sweeping background they are moving in.

If the previous story in this collection, Grafenwalder’s Bestiary, was not exactly a cheery read, Nightingale proved to be a veritable slide into horror: I don’t recall ever feeling such depth of dread with Reynolds’ works before, even when he described the awful transformations visited on flesh and metal by the Melding Plague. Still, it was the kind of story it’s impossible to tear one’s eyes away from, and despite the novella-length of the work I rushed through it in no time at all.

In the aftermath of a bloody war between two factions called Northern Coalition and Southland Militia, the planet of Sky’s edge has found some sort of balance, although the scars from the conflict are not completely healed: one of the items still left unchecked concerns the need to bring to justice the infamous Colonel Jax, whose name is associated with unspeakable atrocities. For some time it’s been believed that Jax had died, but Martinez, an older, wealthy man, has obtained fresh information about the Colonel’s presence aboard a hospital ship that was active during the war, the Nightingale. Gathering a small group of specialists, Martinez enrols them as a strike team to board the powered-down Nightingale and retrieve Jax, presumably lying in suspended animation aboard the ship.

What looks like a fairly simple operation turns quickly into a nightmarish journey through a huge vessel that looks dormant but is not exactly unresponsive – a ship that during the conflict was managed by a high-level AI capable of conducting autonomously many of the tasks required from a human team of medics in a war zone. As the team journeys through the darkened, empty ship, the sense of dread keeps intensifying, not only because of the ever-increasing difficulties the group encounters in opening interconnecting airlocks, but because the Nightingale seems to be waking up in increments, reacting to the intruders’ actions and actively making their progress more difficult and dangerous. Until they find out the ultimate truth about Nightingale’s AI and the effects produced on a sentient, but artificial, mind by witnessing the horrors of war in the flesh, so to speak…

I will leave to you the discovery of the final reveal about the ship’s choice of building a war memorial that would equal the impact of Picasso’s Guernica in the conscience of humankind, and will only tell you to brace yourselves, because you will need it.

 

My Rating:

Short Story: GRAFENWALDER’S BESTIARY (from Galactic North), by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space trilogy is one of the most intriguing (and challenging!) reads I ever encountered, but it happened several years ago so that time has blurred my memory of it considerably, and the complexity of the narrative context in which this space opera series is set made it difficult for me to retain more than a few of the myriad details of that multifaceted tapestry. A re-read is something I might enjoy one of these days, and I think this collection of longer stories from that same universe might be the best way to re-introduce myself with the characters and the wide, sweeping background they are moving in.

If it’s possible to feel intense, visceral hate for a fictional character, one that exists only in the pages of a book, then this is what I felt for Grafenwalder, the protagonist of this story. He’s one of the spoiled wealthy individuals belonging to the Circle, a club of collectors of rare animals: in the Circle, status is defined by the number of one-of-a-kind specimens one is able to collect, the members striving to outdo one another not only in the uniqueness of their find, but in the way the hapless creatures are displayed, so that the shock value of each presentation is often achieved at the expense of the captured being.

And I consciously use the word ‘being’ because the prizes Grafenwalder is so proud of are not necessarily animals as such – not that such exhibits would be less monstrous in that case, considering the thoughtless cruelty the man shows toward his captives – but also sentient creatures from different evolutionary paths, or former human beings twisted into nightmarish shapes by surgery or genetic modifications, to the point of not being recognizable as human anymore.

Lately, Grafenwalder found himself in competition with Ursula Goodglass, a recent member of the Circle and therefore, in his eyes, an outsider in need of a lesson in humility: when he learns that the woman acquired a rare amadryad at the same time he did, he bribes the transport’s captain to kill the creature destined to Goodglass, and once the brief satisfaction for this low trick does not yield the expected results he vows to shock her and everyone else with a truly unique specimen.

The genetically engineered beings called Denizens that were showcased in the story A Spy in Europa have now become something of a myth, but through a shady dealer Grafenwalder manages to acquire what might be the very last one, preparing a special glass cage where the conditions of pressure and temperatures found on Jovian satellite can be replicated: here is where the base nature of the man’s spirit is shown in all its disgusting detail, and the cruelty he visits on the poor Denizen made me sick to my stomach. But even the very rich and powerful are not exempt from retribution…

This is not an easy story to read – or at least it was not for me – but I appreciated how Reynolds managed to keep a sort of detachment from what he describes. Still, I’m going to have a few nightmares about this one for a while…

 

My Rating:

Short Story: DILATION SLEEP (from Galactic North), by Alastair Reynolds

 

One of the main themes in the Revelation Space series is that of the Melding Plague, a cyber virus infecting the delicate nano circuitry of the implants people installed in their bodies, changing and re-shaping these implants into new configurations and negatively affecting the wearer.  In this story, a group of wealthy refugees from Yellowstone – one of the planets that were hit hardest by the plague – has taken to space in suspended animation, in the hope that the century of so of their travel away from the homeworld will allow scientists to find a cure, so they will be able to get back to their lives.  The ones less fortunate have either decided to place themselves in cryo-storage or to have the implants surgically removed.

Uri Sagdev is one the six crewmembers aboard ship whose stasis can be lifted should there be an emergency, and the ship does exactly that at the beginning of the story, interfacing with Uri through the likeness of his wife Katia: once Uri is over the worst of the revival process, the ship informs him that one of the other crewmembers was infected by the Melding Plague before departure, although the problem was undetected, and that Uri will have to operate on him to remove the altered implants before it’s too late: not even cryo-sleep is able to stop the infection and the man might die if they wait too long.

As Uri walks the deserted ship to get himself in better shape prior to the surgical procedure, however, he becomes increasingly aware of another presence – an impossibility, of course, because he’s the only one awake and mobile and there is no chance that a stowaway might have been hidden aboard for so long, without the basic means for survival. Still, there is definitely a shadowy presence haunting him…

Dilation Sleep is an edge-of-your-seat tale that will keep you guessing until the very unexpected reveal, a mix of science fiction and borderline horror that works very well and seems perfectly suited to this time of the year…  🙂

 

 

My Rating:

Short Story Review: WEATHER (from Galactic North), by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space trilogy is one of the most intriguing (and challenging!) reads I ever encountered, but it happened several years ago so that time has blurred my memory of it considerably, and the complexity of the narrative context in which this space opera series is set made it difficult for me to retain more than a few of the myriad details of that multifaceted tapestry.  A re-read is something I might enjoy one of these days, and I think this collection of longer stories from that same universe might be the best way to re-introduce myself with the characters and the wide, sweeping background they are moving in.

Weather is a novella-sized tale exploring in more depth the hostility between the Conjoiners and the rest of humanity, even that part of humanity that has chosen to meld flesh and machine: the Ultras, another of the factions in which the human race has fractured itself, combine mechanical and organic parts, either to augment some capabilities or to replace lost limbs, but they leave the mind well alone, finding the Conjoiner way of life beyond repulsive.

This story takes place aboard the Petronel, a cargo ship being chased by pirates: after a long, nerve-wracking pursuit, the Petronel’s crew chooses to stand and fight and, quite surprisingly, they get the best of their hunters, who have run afoul of some wandering space debris.  As they board the pirate ship to salvage equipment for repairs, the crewmen find a Conjoiner girl who had clearly been a prisoner and, not without some difficulty, take her aboard the cargo at the insistence of Inigo, the shipmaster, and against the objections of Captain Van Ness, who is highly distrustful of Conjoiners.

The two men have enjoyed, up until now, a close relationship borne of trust and mutual respect, but Inigo’s insistence in trying to deal with the girl – named Weather as a way to simplify her complicated designation – as a human being instead of a dangerous monster, drives a wedge between shipmaster and captain, to the point that the fracture seems impossible to reconcile. Only the danger presented by the failing drive – a Conjoiner model – will convince the captain to trust Weather, up to a point, and let her try to repair it so that the Petronel can reach its destination in time.

The rift between Conjoiners and the rest of humanity is represented here in all its bitterness, the past misunderstandings and troubles so deeply rooted that even the passing of time seems unable to lessen them, and Inigo finds himself trying to walk the fine line between two opposing feelings, while the story reaches its inevitable, bittersweet conclusion.

 

My Rating:

Short Story Review: A SPY IN EUROPA (from Galactic North), by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space trilogy is one of the most intriguing (and challenging!) reads I ever encountered, but it happened several years ago so that time has blurred my memory of it considerably, and the complexity of the narrative context in which this space opera series is set made it difficult for me to retain more than a few of the myriad details of that multifaceted tapestry.  A re-read is something I might enjoy one of these days, and I think this collection of longer stories from that same universe might be the best way to re-introduce myself with the characters and the wide, sweeping background they are moving in.

 

 

In the third story of this anthology the focus shifts from Clavain and the Conjoiners to follow another character entirely: Marius Vargovic is a highly skilled spy, enrolled for a mission on Europa, one of the major Jovian satellites, where he needs to contact a sleeper agent to retrieve an important substance that will prove pivotal in the struggle between the Demarchists and another faction for the control of political power.

The first part of the story follows more or less the usual patterns of spy lore: the agent arrives on site in disguise and mingles with the crowds of workers and tourists that move through Europa, then he meets his target while trying to look and sound inconspicuous, and finally he concludes his mission, heading for the retrieval point.  What comes as totally unexpected, as the story unfolds, comes from the descriptions of the place and the unforeseen turn of events that leads to the conclusion.

Europa looks like a fascinating and terrible place: not only the settlements around Jupiter are flourishing – mostly because the economy of Sol System’s inner planets is dwindling – but on Europa they are based on floating cities anchored to the moon’s frigid oceans thanks to a crucial technological discovery. The cities were built through the work of the Denizens, humans who had been genetically modified so they could survive in the cold depths of Europa’s seas, and have been used as little more than slaves ever since.

Vargovic’s task, on behalf of the Demarchists’ adversaries from Gilgamesh Isis, consists in taking possession of a material that will sabotage the cities, and to do so he needs to be surgically altered in a way that will allow him to live underwater for the critical part of his mission. But as such operations go, there are plots within plots involved and even the main operatives are unaware of every detail, so that Vargovic will have to face more than he could foresee, or had bargained for…

A Spy in Europa is a great change of pace and scope from its two predecessors, and at first I found myself a little disoriented, but as the story rolled forward, gaining momentum and upping the stakes, I was fascinated by its twists and turns, and highly surprised by the unforeseeable ending.

My Rating:

Short Story Review: GLACIAL (from Galactic North), by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space trilogy is one of the most intriguing (and challenging!) reads I ever encountered, but it happened several years ago so that time has blurred my memory of it considerably, and the complexity of the narrative context in which this space opera series is set made it difficult for me to retain more than a few of the myriad details of that multifaceted tapestry.  A re-read is something I might enjoy one of these days, and I think this collection of longer stories from that same universe might be the best way to re-introduce myself with the characters and the wide, sweeping background they are moving in.

 

The second story in this collection takes place some time after the events of Great Wall of Mars: Clavain is continuing his integration into Conjoiner society and is now part of an expedition on an ice-bound planet named Diadem, where the Conjoiners found an abandoned human base whose inhabitants are long dead.  Searching through the records, they discover that the group came from Earth as embryos, grown and taken care of by a set of robots: something of a common choice in the past when ships took a far longer time to travel between the stars. At some point, however, a viral infection caused the base dwellers to suffer a form of mental imbalance that ultimately led to their death: while exploring the now abandoned base, Clavain however discovers that one of the explorers died outside on the ice, and that what looked at first like an accident might be instead the consequence of a murder. And once the Conjoiners find one body preserved in cold storage, that of a man who hibernated himself in the hope of being rescued, Clavain can’t shake the suspicion that he might have had something to do with the death of his companions…

Glacial is in equal parts a mystery (which at some point turns into a murder mystery) and a journey of discovery for Clavain, who is still adapting to the Conjoiner nano-machines in his body and at the same time trying to keep hold of some aspects of his older self: while his companions can communicate more quickly and efficiently through direct mind-link, for example, he still prefers to talk, as if he were somewhat afraid that letting go of the last remnants of what he used to be, he might lose something important he will not be able to recover.  I liked very much his interactions with Galiana, the de facto leader of the small group of Conjoiner refugees he belongs to, and the affectionately amused way in which she stresses Clavain’s small quirks, just as I found intriguing the man’s need for some moments of solitude away from the constant flow of information that the Conjoiners take for granted.  The society he was “adopted” into is a fascinating one, and these small day-to-day details are fleshing out nicely the wider scope of Reynold’s Revelation Space background.

A less fascinating offering than its predecessor, but still a very interesting read.

 

 

My Rating: