Simon Ounsley

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1801581.html

I think all of the stories in the 1987 collection were new to me. A lot of them seemed to reflect the Zeitgeist of Thatcherism and Cold War - in particular, two memorable pieces by Paul J. McAuley and Lee Montgomerie. I will also remember Brian Stableford's cryogenic survivor who finds himself alive but not immortal. All of these stories are pretty good, and I don't think any of them figured on the Hugo or Nebula shortlists of the day.… (altro)

Brian Stableford - The growth of the House of Usher

Unsettling story in which the narrator visits Rowland Usher, in his gigantic gene-engineered 'house' on the Orinoco Delta. 'Gantz' gene-techniques can build shelter and other amenities for humanity but Usher is trying to push further, creating buildings which are eco-systems. He is dying of an incurable disease, the same one that killed his sister, whom the narrator imagines is haunting the house...

Karen Joy Fowler - Heartland

Odd very short story about the unhappy love affair of a burger bar waitress in what may be not this world/reality.

Eric Brown - The time-lapsed man

Thorn is an Engineman addicted to the flux of spaceflight. On shore leave he starts to notice a strange delay in his hearing of sounds. Things get worse...

Alex Stewart - Animator

Film critic Karen Taylor is amazed when she sees the special effects used by Tobdy Darke to create dinosaurs in a new film...

Phillip Mann - Lux in Tenebris

A frightened carpenter returning home late at night encounters lights and strange beings in the woods. Picking up a torch they leave, he later drops it in the village well and inadvertantly gives the well a 'holy' aura. But over time things change...

Julio Buck Abrera - Salvage

Distinctly unpleasant story about mutilating kidnapped children and forcing them to beg.… (altro)

David Brin - The giving plague

Superbly twisty story about Les Adamson, who theorises about the most cunning virus infection strategy ever, narrated by his less ethical co-researcher Forry.

Paul McAuley - Karl and the ogre

Karl and his two colleagues hunt and kill ogres, who are slowly declining in numbers. What appears to be a fantasy scenario morphs into something very different.

Christopher Evans - Artefacts

Vendavo, an artist renowned for his long-lived 'chimeras' - art works powered by emotion - is murdered and suspicion falls on his frustrated disciple, Kumash.

Kim Newman - Famous monsters

Wonderful alternate world romp, in which, after the Second War of the Worlds, aliens get accepted and one reminisces about his film career in Hollywood.

S.M.Baxter - Something for nothing

An empty alien spaceship is discovered on a trans-galactic journey, and becomes a treasure trove of wonders...

Greg Egan - Scatter my ashes

Rather laboured horror story set in in a grim, violent milieux, in which a photographer discovers evidence of a serial murderer called Jack...… (altro)

David S. Garnett - The only one

Marvelous time travel story. The narrator, a nasty policeman/secret agent, falls in love with Miss Katherine over tea with her friend Miss Christina. They marry and are happy but one indiscretion wrecks things. An inventor he meets on an investigation has developed a time machine which seems to offer a new beginning....

Cherry Wilder - The decline of Sunshine

Very odd story. Sybil, a real psychic, interrupts a seance to eject a policeman masquerading as a client but gets an inkling of bigger trouble in store for the 'dome' covering Brisbane (aka Sunshine City) where things take place.

Charles Stross - The boys

Incredibly over-egged helping of cyberpunk in which a waif returns to a decayed orbital habitat.

Lisa Tuttle - Memories of the body

Powerful start in which a woman kills her husband at the behest of her lover. Yet it is not really her husband but a 'fax' (duplicate). What could be a Dickian tale runs out of steam.

Christopher Burns - Among the wounded

The narrator appears to be a patient in a sanatorium, but his doctor, the sinister Reismann, is interested in his dreams and the stigmata he is developing. Unsettling.

Eric Brown - The girl who died for art, and lived

Daniel alone survives, with horrific injuries, an accident in space that kills his partner. Trying to expiate his guilt by selling artworks about the crash, he meets Lin, another artist is who is slowly dying.… (altro)