Short Fiction Corner | The Grinding House by Kaaron Warren

Do you remember the Good Old Days?

"They were good. People cared about each other. Wealthy governments gave money to poor countries. You could go to the doctor even if you didn't have money to pay. The government would pay. And they'd help you if you couldn't find a job. Not throw you in jail."

Not so much nowadays. Nowadays, the sad fact is that "no one gives a shit about anyone. [..] People are dying of hunger and deprivations," and all anyone seems to care about - according to the gospel of The Grinding House - is Slenderize, "the complete weight-loss-mental-health programme. It's even got an anti-cancer agent in there."

Why wouldn't you want some of that action?

As it happens, there's at least one good reason - one very good reason - but I'll leave that for you folks to find out in your own time. As well you should: Kaaron Warren is such a powerful purveyor of the weird and the wonderful as to practically alarm, and her 2005 novella The Grinding House is, I think, among her very finest fictions.

Disturbing and disarming in equal parts, The Grinding House is the twisted tale of four friends - the brothers Nick and Rab; Sasha, the woman everyone wants; and Bevan, the odd man out - four friends and sometime lovers who escape to an abandoned almond grove in the countryside when an apocalyptic plague sweeps through the city.

I'll say they don't all make it.

"This is what happens. First the feet feel stiff and the heels sore. You can't bend your toes. Then your ankles feel stiff. It is worse overnight. You wake up in pain. As you walk you feel the bones crackle. Like walking on eggshells. Your fingers, too. You can't move your fingers. [...] You know then that you don't have long. [...] Your neck stiffens. Your groin feels painful. When you walk, it is like your pelvis is mortar and your spine a pestle, grinding, grinding."

It's harrowing stuff, this. Mercifully short, but bitterly, brilliantly beautiful; a fusion of intensity and intimacy so gnarled together as to appear inseparable. Warren wends effortlessly from moments of churning, repulsive horror to episodes abbreviated from some lyrical escapist fable. In quick succession The Grinding House put me in mind of The Pesthouse by Jim Crace, the work of Sam Taylor - specifically The Republic of Trees - and of course Warren's own Walking the Tree.

In the erstwhile Warren builds her characters cannily - not necessarily pleasant characters, but they are no less authentic for that - without seeming for a single solitary second to do so, and ultimately delivers deathblows so sudden and shocking as to appall. I was, for my part, quite beside myself by the end.

The Grinding House is experimental horror of highest order: a harrowing vegetarian fable - and what of it? - more affecting in just a few thousand words than most full length novels aspire to be in their entirely.

But I expect the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Thus, dear readers, I bid you: eat, and be well!

Or unwell, as the case may be...

***

The Grinding House is available now as a Kindle Single, priced to move, from the folks at 40k Books, or as part of Dead Sea Fruit, Ticondera Publishing's 2010 collection of this alarmingly talented Aussie author's sterling short fiction.

Go now, and gorge. :)

Short Fiction Corner | Three From Nightjar, or, The Corpse Fowl Cometh

I don't know if social media has a bad rap, or I give it a bad rap, but for all that it's a right bloody timesuck - such that I tend to disappear off the face of the Earth in terms of Twitter and Google+ whenever I've deadlines to attend, for fear I spend my allotted hours burbling about #fridayreads or the pitfalls of UHT milk - for all that it is that, as I was saying, and it is, it is too a way to engage with people you otherwise wouldn't, or couldn't.

Case in point: a little while back I was tweeting about what I was reading. One of those books was Regicide by Nicholas Royle, which I reviewed here, and after a little searching it turned out that the gent had a Twitter presence. So I did the decent thing and cordially @ replied Nicholas in.

Momentarily, he and I got chatting. One thing led to another, and before you know it I was introducing him to my---

Wait, what? No no no! That's not what happened at all!

What in fact happened was: Nicholas asked if I'd like to take a look at a few of the latest chapbooks he'd published through the small press he operates. I'll cop to not having heard of Nightjar Press before we talked, but a quick look at the blog, and the array of authors gathered together under the Nightjar banner - among them Michael Marshall Smith, Tom Fletcher and Conrad Williams, to name but a few - was all the impetus I needed to take Nicholas up on his offer.

And that isn't even to speak of the fact that Nightjar Press is named in honour of the most terrifying bird I've ever heard of.

Do yourself a favour: don't follow that link. :/

So. What I did was... I started with what I knew. Namely Tom Fletcher, whose The Leaping I loved last year - see here - though I found, I'm afraid, rather less to like about Fletcher's second novel, The Thing on the Shore, this spring. 'Field' the tale of a Forestry Commission warden called Tony and his assistant Sarah, who are called out one evening by a local pub landlord to move along a group of youths who are camping illegally at the end of the lake. In fact "not only were they camping illegally, but they were partying very loudly, and had dreadlocks and piercings. And it wasn't even dark." (p.5) The horror!

Anyway, when Tony and Sarah find the campgrounds, the youths are nowhere to be found. The wardens split up to find them, and then... well. These are short short stories, folks, and it wouldn't do to ruin them, so forgive me if my synopses are on the slight side.

'Field' is for its part an exercise in measure and suggestion. There are no monsters in Fletcher's short - at least, none that the reader sees - only these two lost souls, Tony and Sarah, and a field full of atmosphere, and implicit, perhaps even Lovecraftian, otherworldliness. Few authors can evoke such unease so effortlessly, juxtapose the natural and the unnatural so very memorably, and though I was a slice of trifle disappointed by The Thing on the Shore, 'Field' is proof positive that Tom Fletcher is a talent to watch like a hawk.

The night after I finished 'Field' I read 'Lexicon' by Christopher Burns, whose work I fear I am not at all familiar with... though from his minibio I gather Quercus Publishing will be putting out his sixth novel, A Division of the Light, in 2012. I may well look for it then.

That said, of the three chapbooks Nicholas was so kind as to send along, I think I enjoyed 'Lexicon' the least. It's about a first date, and the origins of one particular Greek myth. Harry has brought Heather to his home, you see, ostensibly to serve her a delicious meal of olives and fish -- but there's more going on in 'Lexicon' than just that, from the first paragraph on out:

"What survives of past civilisations is more than architecture and earthworks. Whatever we say, whatever we do, has taproots that feed within deep layers of the past. In faraway lands tongues we would not recognise have already expressed our every thought. Other minds have imagined our dreams and traded them amongst people who saw no distinction between fiction, belief, history and myth." (p.5)

Sadly, though Harry at least seems an interesting character, off-kilter and so controlling as to set alarm bells ringing in any sane individual - but not Heather, for altogether too long a time - 'Lexicon' is creepy rather than chilling, disturbing in its ostentatiously mythical way... but alas, a little obvious. I wasn't surprised by 'Lexicon', and in a narrative so inextricable from its twist resolution as this, that's a real problem.

Last but not least, I read 'The Beautiful Room,' from the pen of another author I knew next to nothing about before now: R. B. Russell. 'The Beautiful Room' is about a young couple looking to buy their first flat together. When during a viewing John and Maria come upon a beautiful room with a beautiful view in a beautiful house, they set to discussing how they could wrap this place into their future plans.

But as they chat, John and Maria become aware of an odd noise. Some living, suffering thing seems to be trapped in the walls. Mice, maybe? Or could there be birds stuck in the firmament of this beautiful room? 

Birds... or mice... or something else entirely?

'The Beautiful Room' is a terrific short story, and easily my favourite of the three Nightjar chapbooks addressed in this post. I read it first to myself, as you do, then again, out loud to my partner in crime, who I dare say was as alarmed by R. B. Russell's dialogue-driven narrative as I; nor did I find 'The Beautiful Room' any less alluring a work of fiction the second time out, wrapped up as it is with a wonderfully unspoken ending -- such that a re-read brings to light all sorts of things the reader mightn't have noticed that first time.

On the basis of these three stories alone, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend anyone with an interest in the subtler, more sinister side of short horror seek out the terrific selection of chapbooks on offer from Nightjar Press with all due haste. They're beautifully presented, simply but attractively designed, and artistically very powerful; intimate, insidious little stories fit to work a hole in the hardest hearts.

Not to seem a total shill, they're also strictly limited in the literal sense of the phrase, so oft-abused: there are only 200 copies of each chapbook available - in fact many of Nightjar's earlier efforts have long since sold out - every one of which comes signed and numbered at a nominal cost of £3 plus postage, if you order direct from the publisher. I gather there are still a few copies of 'Field', 'Lexicon' and 'The Beautiful Room' going, as of the time of this writing... but be quick about it, folks, if you're at all interested.

And you should be!

Short Fiction Corner | "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box" by Mira Grant

A couple of months back, Orbit Short Fiction blinked into existence.

There was much ado about the programme before its launch, and I'm sure it's been getting by alright, but from where I'm sitting, I've seen precious little about Orbit Short Fiction since.

So, between very much enjoying Feed, and very much looking forward to enjoying Deadline just as soon as I can put away a few evenings to do the second book of the Newsflesh justice, I bought - for buttons - a copy Mira Grant's hot short. Coming in at under 4,000 words, "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box" sounded just the ticket to tide me over.

My mistake...

"Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box" is about a group of friends who have been meeting up every Friday night for all their adult lives to roleplay the end of the world. Every week, one of the friends paints a picture of the apocalypse, and the others must decide how they'd overcome it - or at the very least else survive it. On the 683rd such evening, Cole, in absentia, presents a viral scenario that would be bog standard were it not for its cold, hard plausibility.

"It's just sick," says one of the gang as the tape recorder containing Cole's last message to them plays out. Suddenly her absence seems conspicuous, and alarm bells start ringing... but it is already too late?

Well, yes. Yes it is.

"Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box" is executed with all the accessibility we've come to expect from Mira Grant - the pseudonym of urban fantasy author Seanan McGuire - but precious little of the panache. And the payoff, whether in terms of narrative or character, is sadly something of a nothing.

Evidently unequal to the task of communicating personality or import in such a short space of time, Grant resorts to an old and exhausted formula: there is the set-up, then the explication, then the reveal. Apocalypse twist!

And there's some dreadfully clumsy composition, most notably:

"Cole stopped again before starting back up, sounding more and more like a broken marionette."

I mean, really? Seriously?  I'm not often so pedantic - and it's a perfectly appropriate image, I'll give Grant that - but exactly how does one sound like a broken marionette? Methinks someone should have returned this simile to sender...

In the end, "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box" is a neat idea, and not a great deal else. It could have made for an fine bonus feature in one or another of Grant's novels, but as it is, sold as a standalone short story, "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box" is slight and not at all satisfying. But at a buck (or $2) for a bit of fun, you know; easy come, easy go.

Now where could my copy of Deadline have gotten to...

Short Fiction Corner | "Hurt Me" by MLN Hanover

I wonder... how many times have I read the "best fantasy debut of 2011" already?

Songs of the Earth: there's one. Count Prince of Thorns: and another. And The Unremembered... oh, The Unremembered.

So three. Three, and it's only May - though of those three, I fear I could only stand to read the first two in full. I dare say if I'd completed it, The Unremembered would have been this year's The Left Hand of God, and Peter seems such a genuine fellow; I opted to spare him that, and you.

But I'm getting off topic.

What I mean to say is this: the term, the descriptor aforementioned, "the best fantasy debut" of this year or that, seems to be treated so lightly these days... so lightly that whatsoever meaning it might have had to me, it's long since lost. I won't be seen to espouse such an approach here on The Speculative Scotsman. But of all those new genre novelists I've read since beginning the blog, among the most impressive - near-as-dammit at the fore of a field of sterling contenders - we have Daniel Abraham, may he live long, and prosper.

You've yet to see my reviews of The Long Price quartet; some day soon I expect you will. Nor have I offered opinions on either of Abraham's newer novels as yet, and there's been something of an influx of those, with the recent release of both The Dragon's Path, which is to say the first book of The Dragon and The Coin, and Leviathan Wakes - an SF collaboration with the author Ty Franks. I'll get back to you with the word on each in due course, but I expect that yes, they'll be awesome, each it their own way. Because the man's a bloody marvel. Seems like everything he touches turns to treasure.

Still, you can colour me surprised he's managed to make of his pseudonymous sideline in urban fantasy - that most despised genre of all - something even passing presentable, far less the excellent, edgy entertainment "Hurt Me" represents.

"Hurt Me" was my first taste of MLN Hanover, and though it goes against practically everything I hold dear - God forbid I get caught reading paranormal romance, right? - I think I'll be going back for a second helping... and a third... and so on and so forth till I'm stuffed quite to the gunnels.

"Hurt Me" begins with a house. A decrepit old house, fallen into disrepair, and haunted, so the story goes, by a vengeful spirit: facts or fictions, perhaps, which our first narrator - a nervous Realtor - does his level best to gloss over when showing the property. But Connie Morales sees through his showmanship, his sleight-of-hand and eye. She seems well aware of all the problems associated with 1532 Lachmont Drive, all the things the Realtor hopes to hide from her... yet she signs on the dotted line anyway.

Deal done, Connie moves in, and from here on out the narration of "Hurt Me" alternates between passages told from her counter-intuitively calm and collected perspective and more animated sequences in the company of Connie's new next-door neighbours, who gossip and taunt and warn - as all good neighbours should.

I tend to think these latter scenes exist largely to make "Hurt Me" a livelier and more immediately accessible tale, for Connie can be an unsettling protagonist at the best of times. Formerly a victim of domestic abuse, she obviously knows substantially more about what's going on here than we, yet her behaviour rebuffs explanation at every turn but for the very last. One wonders if she's not some sort of ghost hunter, because clearly she's aware a spirit which means her harm shares 1532 Lachmont Drive with her, yet the closest Connie comes to bona fide fear is when she spills her glass of wine. And even that seems part of the plan...

It all comes clear in the end, of course, and I won't be spoiling that for you here. Suffice it for me to say that if the explanation isn't quite fit to floor those readers who enter every story expecting the unexpected - guilty as charged - then certainly the particulars of the perverse relationship between the haunted and the haunting are apt to catch one off-guard.

And in a good way, needless to say.

I don't usually read the likes of "Hurt Me," but paging through my copy of Songs of Love and Death on the lookout for the new Neil Gaiman I'd heard so very little about, I came across Hanover's name and the penny promptly dropped. I'm such a fan of Daniel Abraham's other work, I simply had to know. Call it morbid curiosity if you like, but I'll tell you this: curiosity did not kill this cat.

"Hurt Me" is a smart and knowing story, taut with tension and as riddled with mystery as a rotten body is bacteria, written by an author who seems in complete control of language and character and narrative - that holy trinity of tale-telling in any and every genre. More fool me, really, for thinking that remarkable talent wouldn't translate across the thin blue line that holds high fantasy apart from paranormal romance, simply because I'm so often disdainful of that latter.

Well... consider my presumptions thus scuttled, going forward.

***

You can find "Hurt Me" in the pages of Songs of Love and Death, an anthology of original short fiction edited by the gruesome twosome of George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, and published late last year by Gallery Press in the United States.

Short Fiction Corner | "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong" by K. J. Parker

I marked a lot of firsts last year. More, I think, than can be considered entirely par for the course for a guy in his mid-20s, when short of making a baby or finally getting that blasted book published there's nothing much you can see, or do, or achieve, that in one form or another you haven't already. Yet with TSS, and the expectation that I'd have something at least faintly interesting to say to you all each day - and every day - I found myself reading more widely in 2010; giving the time of day to books and authors I'm afraid to say I'd very likely have ignored before.

Perhaps I would have ended up reading K. J. Parker one day anyway... who can say? As was, one fateful day last Summer, I cosied up with The Folding Knife in large part because its cover bore such a striking image, enjoyed its intent and intelligence a great deal - and have I looked back since? Not for a cotton-pickin' second, no.

In fact in January there I read, reviewed and rather adored The Hammer, the latest standalone novel from the pseudonymous sort, and wished upon finishing it I could somehow find the time to read it all over again, or reach back into Parker's extensive back-catalogue for one of the good old oldies of his and/or hers I'm told I've missed. A few bad eggs in a row, reading-wise - it simply wouldn't do to tell you which just yet - only served to underscore that siren song.

So I added The Company to my tower of books To Be Read, trying not to stress overly much about the entirely unreasonable sense of guilt I felt in so doing, and lo and behold, as if specifically to set my half-maddened mind at ease, along came "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong."

You can read it here - indeed I would urge you to - as part of the stonking Winter edition of Subterranean Magazine, which I count myself quite, quite proud to have subscribed to, way back when it came on paper and cost actual money (especially, I would add, in light of the Atlantic). Also featured in this issue is fiction from genre stalwarts and rising greats such as Larry Niven, Mike Resnick, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, Robert Silverberg, and another of my own favourite authors, the one, the only... Caitlin R. Kiernan.

Come on, now: you know you want to.
And as well you should.

Anyway, what with the circumstances I've explained, "A Small Price for Birdsong" was the first of the short stories I gravitated towards, and what a story, truly. I hadn't read short-form K. J. Parker before - come to that I don't know that he or (sigh) she has even written a great deal - and though I was worried such a smaller-scale narrative as in "A Small Price for Birdsong" might perhaps be unable to match up against the unimaginable cunning and the whacking great emotional impact of Parker's novels proper, it quickly came clear that whatever fears I might have harboured were for naught. This is K. J. Parker on fine form indeed, doing for music what s/he has done in the past for money... and justice; industry... and engineering.


Let me explain.


Our protagonist: a professor of the aural arts, more tolerated for his tenure at a certain academy than admired for his talent - much to his own infinite misery. Our antagonist: an esteemed student of the selfsame professor who seems frustratingly brilliant at everything he sets his sights on. This time, however, Subtilus has set his sights on murder, and when he's caught, and sentenced to death himself, he passes on his final, unfinished symphony to the professor, who must decide whether to sell it as is, or embellish a final few notes and publish it as his own.


Of course the professor's conundrum is rather complicated when Subtilus somehow escapes the noose, and returns to his master bearing an offer which, if agreed, will change the interlocking courses of both their lives.


"A Small Price for Birdsong" is a stunningly good show - a characteristically light yet more often than can be considered occasionally profound exploration of the notion of ownership, of truth as an objective fact shifting and twisting through layer upon layer of perception and subjectivity. As the student surpasses the master, and the master the student, and the weight of the world shifts to balances out the scales, Parker wrings from two typically ambiguous characters deeply at odds with one another a remarkable and natural morality play the equal of any of his or her more expansive narratives... that I've read.


I understand some readers find K. J. Parker's fiction a little cold, a little distant, and though "A Small Price for Birdsong" is perhaps a less judiciously wicked tale than we're used to from this very distinctive storyteller, if you haven't found warmth anywhere in The Folding Knife or The Hammer or The Engineer Trilogy, likely you'll struggle reading this short story too. However, for all those who've yet to experience the insidious delights of K. J. Parker - who might mayhap have wondered whether the novel-length narrative was the best place to test the waters, as it were - there can be no better place to start than here.


###


PS: I see Jared from Pornokitsch quite beat me to the punch as regards recommending "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong," the cock. (Speaking of which, I'm still waiting!) But certainly as far as this story goes we agree on a great many levels, and I'd urge you to pop on over there to see what he has to say about the fabbiest K. J. Parker freebie ever.


If the pair of us shouting from the blogtops what an incredible short story "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong" is doesn't move you to read the goshdarned thing, I don't know what will.


Seriously, go on now. It's still free, and it's still superb...