Reviews

Reviews Editor: Liz Grzyb

 + Shade's Children  : :  Lev Lafayette
 + Children of Chaos  : :  Karen Miller
 + Robots and Time  : :  Russell B. Farr
 + The Strangers  : :  Kyla Ward
 + Magic or Madness  : :  Liz Grzyb
 + The Treasured One  : :  P Niski
 + The Crystal Gorge  : :  P Niski
 + Through Soft Air  : :  Russell B. Farr
 + Through Soft Air  : :  P Niski
 + Glow  : :  Liz Grzyb
 + Laughin' Boy  : :  Russell B Farr

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Through Soft Air   :   Lee Battersby

Prime Books, 2006
ISBN: 0-8095-5646-4
282 pages
RRP: AU$24.95 $US17.95
Review by Russell B. Farr

It should always be a pleasure to open the first collection by a writer, no matter how long into their career they are. Australia writers have a long history of impressive first collections: Call to the Edge by Sean McMullen; My Lady Tongue and Other Stories by Lucy Sussex; The Total Devotion Machine and Other Stories by Rosaleen Love; Rynosserus by Terry Dowling; to name a few. These collections provide the first real opportunity to see a writer's work, developed over a period of time, in one place, to see how stories previously read in magazines and webzines stack up when read together; and not to mention those bonus, original-to-the-collection stories that generally show where the writer is now.

Through Soft Air is the first collection by Perth-based writer Lee Battersby. In the five years since his first sale he has produced a large body of short fiction, and twenty-five of those stories are collected in this volume published by US small press Prime Books. I've known Lee for some time, yet due to the number of stories in this collection having been published in markets I don't regularly read, I was unfamiliar with at least half of the contents.

The collection opens with the Ditmar-nominated “Father Muerte and the Theft”, an interesting enough tale set in the surrealistic fantasy town of Costa Santanas. As the plot unfolds, the reader catches glimpses of who Father Muerte actually is. There are two “Father Muerte” stories in the collection, and a third was published in the most recent issue of Aurealis. All three stories have much to recommend them — an interesting protagonist, an original setting, some great scenes and style — yet I find each one dissatisfying for the same reason: these stories read like detective stories, opening with a whodunit-type mystery, only to then become a tale where the reader is led from one scene to the next without getting the clues necessary to have a guess at the culprit. Of these stories, “Father Muerte and the Rain” is the worst perpetrator, solving the original crime completely off camera only to introduce a twist that is never properly explained.

“Silk” is perhaps the strongest story in the collection, an excellent twist on the home-renovating-discovery-under-the-floor-boards story that concentrates on the tale and presents no attempt at a rational explanation. This tale would not be out of place among the better The Twilight Zone stories.

“Carrying the God” is another strong story, and had my vote as one of the best Australian SF stories published in 2002. It's plain and simple, well-told science fiction of the sort that happens so rarely today. The story is a gem because it continues to work even after the God's nature is revealed, infusing the tale with an even more unnerving conclusion.

The collection gets interesting again about halfway through with “Ecdysis”, a story that reminds me of Tom Reamy's incredibly disturbing “Under the Hollywood Sign”. Here Battersby has latched onto a decent idea, creating a disturbing sense of mystery with an unidentified body in an alley, unmarked, unclothed and hairless. Is it a murder if a cause of death cannot be found? While Battersby does not recreate Reamy's depth of character in “Ecdysis”, he demonstrates a gift for storytelling.

“Stalag Hollywood” is the reason to buy this collection. Like no other story in this book it shows that Battersby is a writer to watch, that he could well be a contender. “Stalag Hollywood” is original, offbeat and the work of a writer not afraid to work an idea out in his own way.

“Father Renoir's Hands” is one of those stories, though flawed in their execution, that leave a lasting, creepy impression. A little wordy, and in places what could have been an incredibly subtle tale is spoilt by the writer trying to achieve too much. There is some great imagery that remains in the mind after the story has faded.

The collection's closing story, “Pater Familias” won the Aurealis Award for Horror Short Story last year. A well crafted old-school horror tale of the night an investigator visits an old doctor, asking a few questions and receiving a macabre answer that he really wasn't expecting. I wish Battersby would tell his Father Muerte stories like this: a trail of clues for the astute reader to guess the conclusion a step ahead of the investigator.

I have said before that there are times when collections are published before a writer is really ready, and Through Soft Air is one of these. For all of the strength of voice and innovation of ideas that Battersby possesses, what he didn't have was 282 pages of stories worth collecting at the time the book was published.

In this regard, Through Soft Air strikes me as being a collection of the sort most predominantly found in the 1960s and 1970s where writers like Harlan Ellison would be able to put together a collection of three or four exceptional stories and pad the rest of the book with whatever was lying around uncollected, while holding back some exceptional stories for the next collection. The short story market of the last 20 years is generally less supportive of this type of endeavour, where collections are generally seen as an assembled flagship showcasing the writer's very best and relegating the bread-and-butter work to the archives.

Through Soft Air is heavy on the bread and butter, though unfortunately a little light on the jam.

Through Soft Air is available from Slowglass Books or Prime Books.

Through Soft Air   :   Lee Battersby

Prime Books, 2006
ISBN: 0-8095-5646-4
282 pages
RRP: AU$24.95 $US17.95
Review by P. Niski

Like all human beings, Lee Battersby has both a light and dark side. Thankfully, he lives his life through the light and writes from the dark.

If you like your life to be lived in a safe comfort zone, with definite boundaries and 'they all lived happily ever after' stories, this may not be the collection you're looking for. Some of the characters live, some live ever after, but few of them live happily. I found revenge, atonement, agony and ecstasy, redemption and despair, but indeed, few happy endings.

I'm glad Battersby ignored his own admonition to 'never write a sequel', because I look forward to more than the two "Father Muerte" stories in this volume, and the idea of a novel has me rapt before it is even written.

"Through Soft Air", which lends the collection its name, reminded me again why war is such a waste of time and people, a real exercise in futility and horror. Perhaps man's proclivity for war is Mother Nature's way of enforced birth control.

"Pass The Parcel" is great: a wonderfully ironic piece with a rare happy ending. This story has humour, hope, and miracles, in complete contrast to the rest of the collection.

Lee Battersby has a sense of the macabre that makes the reader grateful that real life isn't so terrifying. Or is it? If Battersby keeps writing slices of this world, I will keep reading them.

Through Soft Air is available from Slowglass Books or Prime Books.

Glow   :   Kathryn Deans

Pan MacMillan, 2006
ISBN: 0-330-42227-8
294 pages
RRP: AU$14.95
Review by Liz Grzyb

I usually love reading children's and young adult SF. Usually I find them written clearly, with a strong sense of character and a rollicking good adventure (read more Garth Nix if you don't believe me). Unfortunately, Glow isn't one of these kinds of books. While it's simply written, the characters are limp and unlikeable. The plot has some promise, but it is too weak and cliche-ridden to keep an adult's attention for long, let alone a teenager.

Glow is about two children, Colin (the dork) and Ashley (the snob), who get caught up in a magical race against time. The “Shimmer”, a stone with magical powers, has been taken by the Unnamed Ones, and of course the good guys need to get it back.

A nice twist is that the fairies aren't automatically good. They are the bad guys in this series, with Buttercup becoming a grotesque caricature of fairy-dom. She's been grossly enlarged by the magical Shimmer into being “supermodel-sized”. I'm not sure that the author meant “stick thin” in this case though, as Buttercup is only threatening “if she threw something heavy at them”.

Wizards and witches are also humorously treated. They are autocratic, somewhat cowardly and seem to travel best in packs!

Glow is number two in a series, and has some of the flaws common in sequels. There's a goodly chunk of info-dump to begin with (“As you already know…”), and it seems that the first instalment didn't leave room for other complications, as there's a lovely Austin Powers 2 style “Oh, we didn't tell you about that other prophecy because it didn't seem important at the time” situation.

Glow is a children's novel best read by children, unless you're desperate for a really easy read. It's a vaguely amusing and light-hearted adventure, but is pretty slow to get going and very predictable.

Glow is available from Dymocks Online.

Laughin' Boy   :   Bradley Denton

Subterranean Press, 2005
ISBN: 1-59606-016-6
286 pages
RRP: US$40
Review by Russell B. Farr

Laughin' Boy is a book for the 21st Century, and about the 21st Century. To quote the jacket, “It was a sick place in need of sick heroes.” Terrorists massacre a crowd at a fair in Kansas, and a notable survivor, caught on film, is Danny Clayton. Amidst the carnage, in images beamed across the world, he is “laughing his ass off.”

As the plot unfolds, Denton introduces a number of unusual characters, including Amanda “Porno Girl” Larkin, who has a psychological addiction to graphic sexual images yet cannot stand physical contact, and Special Agent Robert “Racist Ranger” Royce, who can't avoid talking like a 19th Century negro slave. This trio become wrapped up in efforts to track down the terrorists while coming to terms with the new world and the media.

What really sets Laughin' Boy apart from the average novel is the method employed in constructing the narrative: online chats, newsgroup posts, website excerpts, television, radio and therapy transcripts and similar “sources” carry almost as much of the story as straightforward narrative. Denton uses these other media effectively to convey the whole picture, letting them tell part of the story, not just thrown in as a gimmick.

Laughin' Boy was written before September 2001, yet manages to capture the change in attitudes following the World Trade Centre attacks. Denton has effectively predicted the knee-jerk in the American psyche and media reaction: the under-siege mentality looking at a target to strike against.

Innovative, uncompromising and uncomfortably thought-provoking, Laughin' Boy is a 21st Century novel demonstrating Denton's sharp eye for media trends and standards, tempered with the wit of an accurate satirist who knows just where to point the finger and the right buttons to push.

It's a black comedy too sharp for a mainstream publisher: Subterranean Press' excellently packaged Laughin' Boy provides all the justification anyone ever needs in questioning why independent presses should be publishing novels.

Subterranean Press list this title as sold out and recommend seeking out this book on eBay; there is also a listing at Amazon.com but there is no guarantee of getting hold of a copy.