Anna CaroCritiques

Another fine collection of New Zealand speculative fiction stories from the same team that edited and produced "A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction".

The first few stories had me on the verge of hyperventilating-teariness, they were that good at evoking the concept of survival. Many later stories were brilliant in other ways. Some others were less successful; one or two were so bad that the only reason I hesitate to name names is that this was a charity anthology for which none of the authors received payment. Besides, mileage varies or they wouldn't have been accepted in the first place.

In any case a few duds out of 34 stories leaves a lot of good stuff left over.

Tina Makareti's Shapeshifter was an absolute standout: her point-of-view character's voice and all the dialogue is just brilliant. Even if you don't adore well-done dialogue like I do, the story is perfectly crafted.

RJ Astruc's Desperately Seeking Darcy is... a mixture. I think it's probably best to read it as a parody of what Americans with no exposure to anything outside old TV and older books think Britain (and butlers and teenagers) is like. (The story is certainly intended as humour, just this aspect of it was a bit ambiguous.) If you can get into that mindset then you can concentrate on the story and the characters, and the characters -- especially Jessica -- are adorable.

Patty Jansen's Looking for Daddy is a zombie apocalypse story for people who don't like zombie apocalypse stories and I highly recommend it. (As opposed to Lynne Jamneck's Extract, which is closer to ordinary zombie apocalypse stories despite which disadvantage it hooked me in (and mildly triggered me, but I say this in a good way) and packed a cunning ending too.)


Some stats I compiled from curiosity:
* Of the 34 authors, 9 are men and 25 women, which makes a nice change.
* 26 seem to me to be white; 6 I'm not sure about though I suspect at least 5 of them are also white; 2 are people of colour including one Māori author. I know the anthology was assembled in a hurry but this is still a disappointing proportion.
* 23 identify as in or from New Zealand (including 4 in or from Christchurch); 3 are Australians and 8 are other overseas folk. This felt like a good mix.
* I didn't collect stats on sexual orientation, but from memory two of the stories featured a lesbian couple; also two featured an MTF character.

This collection of 34 tales released as a charitable venture to raise money for the Christchurch earthquake victims is split into three sections, Survival, Hope and Future. Each of the stories fits well into one of these places. As I've never really been a fan of the short story oeuvre I felt that most of this collection exemplified what I feel in that there just isn't enough within each story to grab you into the tale. The length and quality of the entries varies quite a bit but there were only 2 or 3 of the whole that I didn't really like at all. Most of the collection sits happily under the speculative fiction banner with some outright science fiction and others on the edges of fantasy, new weird and cyberpunk. The only one that didn't seem to fit was a tale of arranged marriage that fits firmly in the Bronte period. Coincidentally, it was also the one I most disliked. The two longest contributions were also the ones I liked best, one from Jeff Vandermeer confirmed a place on my wishlist and the other from Gwyneth Jones added a new entry to that list. Other authors who I now want to read more from include Jesse Bullington, Brenda Cooper, RJ Astruc, Lynne Jamneck and Angel Leigh McCoy. There are some others that I wouldn't be averse to reading more from but they don't quite make the actively seeking list.

Overall this is a decent collection of stories and one I'm happy to recommend (especially as it's for charity).½

My review is now online at

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/book-review-tales-for-canterbury.html½

Superb! Very impressive collection of short stories from a wide range of authors from the globally famous, to many I've never heard of before, but will be investigating their other works. The anthology is to raise money for the Christchurch earthquake victims, and has drawn obviously a lot of support from Australian and New Zealand authors, but also those from a wider sphere. Apparently the editors were inundated with stories and have had to pick the best to form this anthology. There is only one story by each author, and some are very short indeed, but at over 300 pages, it is still a decent length read.

Divided into three sections, Survival, Hope and Future, each story clearly reflects one of these aspects, and the relevance to a disaster is clear, although few stories feature a disaster directly. The genre is very clearly speculative fiction - a few stories are outright SF in various forms, and many more are some variant of near future tales. But there are also a few of the more recent 'weird sf' style, ala Jeff Noon (although he doesn't feature) and some based on more traditional fairy tale concepts especially Antipodean legends. Just a couple are slightly disappointing - and no doubt which ones these are will vary from reader to reader. I was least impressed with two that are obviously continuations or extracts from longer works - the short length means the necessary background is not established, unlike in the other tales where sufficient detail is given despite the short lengths.

Attempting to list all 34 authors and describe each of their tales would be an impossible feat, as would picking just one as my favourite from the book, they are so varied, and all excel in such different ways. I'm just going to pick my favourite(s) from each section: from Survival - Extract by Lynne Jamneck is only 5 pages long, but an inventive twist on what happens when the nano-grey goo becomes sentient and how a horde of zombies will get in anywhere, even if you're in a secure research facility. Like all the best B movies - but without the gore. From Hope - the Unicorn Bell by Karen Healey is again very short, but touchingly poignant. Told from a young girl's viewpoint, going through her nana's possessions after she died, she learns that death need not be feared and that there is indeed Hope in the future. This was the best section of the book, with all the tales being uplifting and hard to choose a favourite amoungst them. From Future - Desperately Seeking Darcy by RJ Astruc, a short tale from the butler's viewpoint of Americans living in england. The contrast between the Valley speak of the daughter and the butler's proper manners, works very well. It is gently humorous, and shows no matter what the future will bring, people will still be human all over.

All the tales have some twist in the ending or leave on a reflective note, so it is worth while spending a bit of time pondering over the last one before rushing on to see what joys the next will bring.

A very worthwhile collection of short stories, a must for any lover of the format, and heartily recommended for everyone else! And it's for charity. Go and buy the book.

It's not a full review, since I have a story in the book, but I've made some comments on the book & my favourite stories in it here:

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2011/01/recent-new-zealand-speculative-fiction...