Previous | Next The most ideologically explicit of the stories I've read so far, "The Dusty Hat" is a beautiful, occasionally disturbing piece that examines the ramifications of an ideological split at the heart of a far-Left party, in the vein of the schism that divided the Socialist Workers Party of Britain in 2013. At... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #93 ā After the Festival by China MiĆ©ville
Previous | Next A gruesome ritual in the midst of a festival leads to animalistic madness in "After the Festival" one of the more distinctly New Weird stories you'll find in Three Moments of an Explosion. This is probably the first Mieville story whose differing strands I failed to draw into coherent meaning by the... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #92 ā Dreaded Outcome by China MiĆ©ville
Previous | Next This sixteen-page story conceptualises a new branch of psychoanalysis: TVC, or traumatic vector therapy. Mieville's prose is once more transformed, the narrator's voice the curt, analytical, and ordered language of a clinical psychologist. Dana Sackhoff, thirty-eight, is scary good at her job, and goes to lengths that might be consideredā¦beyond the call... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #91 – SƤcken by China MiĆ©ville
Previous | Next While Three Moments of an Explosion offers a fair few stories with unnerving elements, it's "SƤcken" that scratches the itch that only a good horror story can. Recent master's graduate Mel and her older academic lover Jo have rented out a lakehouse near Dresden, a beautiful darkly pastoral place surrounded by dark... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #90 ā Syllabus by China MiĆ©ville
Previous | Next The great piece of flash fiction will embroil you in a bite-sized world all its own, and "Syllabus", a story in the form of a high-level university course syllabus, does just that. Time and again, Mieville makes these fascinating choices in every sentence, and they make his prose startling, original, and endlessly... Continue Reading →
A Troll Walks Into A Bar by Douglas Lamsden – Book Review Now Live!
...But not here! I reached out to my friends at the Fantasy Hive and they published this fantastic indie fantasy noir! But since I like you lot well enough - and you've stuck with reading my blog this long - I'll tell you how I came to read Douglas Lumsden's A Troll Walks Into a... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #89 – The Buzzard’s Egg by China MiĆ©ville
Previous | Next "The Buzzard's Egg" adopts the features of a dialogue with one side muted, or else elided. The speaker tells one story, then another, before addressing the other presence - which is invisible, safe for those addresses. You learn much of it, even so: "My hand's steady even though you're my enemy. Most... Continue Reading →
The Martyr by Anthony Ryan – Book Review | An Excellent Follow-Up | The Covenant of Steel #2
https://youtu.be/7o2fMKCEk6k Anthony Ryan's follow-up to The Pariah does everything I wanted it to do. Yes, folks, The Martyr is a quicker-paced, more action-heavy novel than its predecessor. Ryan continues to pepper compelling drama in this world of knights and outlaws, at the core of which is the fiery blaze that is the relationship between the... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #88 – The Rope is the World by ChinaĀ MiĆ©ville | Or, Conceptualising a Whole Galaxy From a Grain of Sand
Previous | Next China Mieville paints ambitious worlds in such bold brushstrokes across the various stories you'll find in Three Moments of an Explosion. What he does in "The Rope is the World" is no different, and reading its opening, I figured I'd take a few moments to highlight just how it is that Mieville... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #87 – The 9th Technique by China MiĆ©ville
Previous | Next Mysticism, hubris, and a bold plan to fumble with the past drive a middle-aged woman down a dangerous road in a world like and unlike our own. Across the globe, in dark places of the earth, secret lairs were barely caves of monsters or marvels but markets. Shops. The worst.kept secret in... Continue Reading →