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It's been a while since I last read any Patrick O'Brian, but this week I found myself in the mood for Aubrey and Maturin again and picked up where I'd left off with The Reverse of the Medal. It sees Jack and Stephen returning to England after their voyage to the South Pacific in The Far Side of the World, where Jack is persuaded to make an investment that he hopes will solve his ongoing financial woes, only to find himself in deeper trouble than he has ever been before.
By this point, it's very clear that the Aubreyad is less a series of separate novels and more a single story in multiple instalments; The Reverse of the Medal skilfully pulls together threads of plot from several books earlier in order to move the overall story on. As always, it's an utter delight, and I really shouldn't leave it so long before reading the next book.
***
Borderlands is the self-published debut collection of short stories from Luke Slater (who, for full disclosure, happens to be my middle brother). The fifteen stories here range from science fiction to fantasy with a touch of horror thrown in for good measure. There are two obvious fairytale retellings, though both with a twist. In others, a pair of hapless drop-outs deal with ancient gods and forgotten indigenous inhabitants of the Moon and Venus; the army of Imperial Soviet Russia pursues a fugitive across the Canadian snows in an alternate 1938; a school trip to a provincial museum turns out to be more dangerous than anticipated; and in the title story, the Nine Worlds of Norse myth are translated into a science-fictional reality. These stories are vividly imaginative and atmospheric, often incorporating the weird and uncanny but never uncomfortably dark, bringing fifteen different worlds sharply to life with humour and the immediacy and forward momentum more often found in more visual media than in prose.
I didn't intend to read the book in a day, but each story was such a delight that I kept yielding to the temptation to read just one more, until suddenly there were no more stories left. I definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys SFF short fiction.
By this point, it's very clear that the Aubreyad is less a series of separate novels and more a single story in multiple instalments; The Reverse of the Medal skilfully pulls together threads of plot from several books earlier in order to move the overall story on. As always, it's an utter delight, and I really shouldn't leave it so long before reading the next book.
***
Borderlands is the self-published debut collection of short stories from Luke Slater (who, for full disclosure, happens to be my middle brother). The fifteen stories here range from science fiction to fantasy with a touch of horror thrown in for good measure. There are two obvious fairytale retellings, though both with a twist. In others, a pair of hapless drop-outs deal with ancient gods and forgotten indigenous inhabitants of the Moon and Venus; the army of Imperial Soviet Russia pursues a fugitive across the Canadian snows in an alternate 1938; a school trip to a provincial museum turns out to be more dangerous than anticipated; and in the title story, the Nine Worlds of Norse myth are translated into a science-fictional reality. These stories are vividly imaginative and atmospheric, often incorporating the weird and uncanny but never uncomfortably dark, bringing fifteen different worlds sharply to life with humour and the immediacy and forward momentum more often found in more visual media than in prose.
I didn't intend to read the book in a day, but each story was such a delight that I kept yielding to the temptation to read just one more, until suddenly there were no more stories left. I definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys SFF short fiction.
