The Edge Online - Book Reviews: Nova Scotia and Don't Turn Out The Light

Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction
Edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J Wilson
Mercat Press, paperback, 304 pages, £9.99
ISBN 1-841830-86-0

Don’t Turn Out The Light
Edited by Stephen Jones
PS Publishing, hardback, 279 pages, £35.00

ISBN 1-904619-26-6

Review by Steven Blake (2005)

I’ve reviewed books like Nova Scotia before. The silly going on about Scotland, which most foreigners think is part of England, like, for example, the North East. A good example too, Scotland and the North East are about equally distinct from Manchester or London. At least there’s a reason this time, the paucity of Scottish SF before Iain Banks and Ken MacLeod. But is that really true? David Pringle bores on for some time in his dreary introduction.

So let’s ignore that and read the stories.

We’ll start with Michael Cobley’s take on Sherlock Holmes. Apparently this is rated as highly original, even a bit Ballardian. It reminds me of Patrick Whittaker’s ‛The Snark Equation’ from an old issue of The Edge. Assuming that Cobley hasn't read ‛The Snark Equation’ (and there’s no reason to think he has), this points out a problem with this kind of anthology – Nova Scotia is part of the happy world of SF, where everyone reads the same books in the same genres and attends the same SF conventions, and so on. It’s not that SF doesn’t produce good stories and ideas, it’s that too often the writers have no sense of enquiry outside the genre and fall down. Much as I like SF, I don’t want to write for a mag that’s part of a scene that’s interested in one genre, which is why I write for The Edge. The Edge not being ‛SF’ any more than it’s anything else, the SF club ignore us, despite the SF reviews and fiction The Edge publishes. The editor doesn’t like this being said, but I want it left in. It’s a shame, because if ever a story should have won one of those fan awards the BSFA or BFS do, it’s ‛The Snark Equation’.

Surely a book of ‛New Scottish Speculative Fiction’ needn’t anchor itself in SFLand at all? Fortunately it’s mostly Pringle who thinks it does, the book includes a greater variety of stuff, not just fantasy but ghost stories, and tales of Boswell, Johnson and Burns. This renders the whole project pointless! Williamson and Wilson explain themselves, but I don’t buy it.

There’s a smattering of Scots dialogue in Nova Scotia. Doesn’t do anything for me. Matthew Fitt’s ‛Criggie’ is the worst example. It’s all in Scots. Maybe it’s great, but I’m not up for learning Scots. English is my language, as it is for most Scottish people.

Jane Yolen’s witchcraft story, ‛A Knot of Toads’ is included. (Yolen is American, but presumably she has Scottish origins, which according to the editors gets you in.) Ironic really; the story has a genuine sense of place, but its presence stretches the book’s premise to ludicrous extremes. At least ‛A Knot of Toads’ is a good story.

Also of interest, Hal Duncan’s ‛The Last Shift’, about the closure of a factory in an alternate universe Scotland, and its history, seen by factory workers. A standout. Also of an alternate bent, with apes this time, Neil Williamson’s ‛The Bennie and the Bonobo’ focuses on Scottish engineering. Deborah J Miller’s ‛Vanilla for the Lady’ is also good, the lady in question being a lady of the night who’s had enough of her pimp. Let’s also mention Angus McAllister’s experimental story, and the re-imagined Glasgow of the entry by Harvey Welles and Philip Raines. Hannu Rajaniemi’s story is interesting too. Stefan Pearson’s ‛The Bogle’s Bargain’ has something too.

There are also two stories about soldiers. Do Scots join the army in large numbers? John Grants’s story, ‛The Hard Stuff’ is a magical tale of a damaged soldier’s redemption at the hands of his wife, who takes him to Scotland. Marion Arnott contributes a dark fantasy, visiting an old soldier in hospital after suffering a vicious beating.

The rest of it didn’t really appeal to me, though that’s partly a matter of taste. Your mileage may vary.

A mixed bag, then, like any anthology. Like Don’t Turn Out The Light, which is the third volume in the Not at Night series. I wonder why it isn’t called Not at Night Volume 3. Anyway, this will set you back a whopping £35. It’s comes signed and numbered, and is a limited edition. There’s another limited edition featuring the same stories, which costs £60 on account of it’s being deluxe. Both editions can be limited out of existence and replaced by a paperback as far as I’m concerned. Maybe this limitedness is because this is just an honest anthology for the sake of it, rather than one with a particular justification for its existence. It’s hard to get those published. Still, some people will want it, and PS Publishing have the experience to have worked out their price accordingly. But I don’t think it’s worth £9.99.

Be that as it may, as with Nova Scotia and many another anthology, Don’t Turn Out The Light has its good points. As usual, we’ll judge the anthology on its contents.

Lisa Tuttle’s ‛Flies By Night’ is a reprint, but I don’t remember reading it and I liked it a lot. Disturbing but delicately told, it’s about women turning into flies. There are original stories as well as reprints here (the first two volumes were all reprints, a fact which I think escaped me).

Paul J McAuley’s ‛Inheritance’ and Garry Kilworth’s ‛Phoenix Man’ are good. Better still are the stories by Roberta Lannes, Terry Lamsley and Basil Copper, really disturbing work.

As ever with a Stephen Jones anthology which isn’t a Year’s Best, he seems to have selected some straightforward genre stories that don’t say anything much. If that’s not you, avoid the entries by Richard Matheson, Jay Russell and Johns Glasby and Burke in particular.

Many of the other stories fall into this category too, and I’m told by the editor that he thinks Don’t Turn Out The Light 3 is ‛like one big treble-sized issue of Jones’ old fiction magazine, Fantasy Tales, only this time much more expensive.’ David Schow’s entry wasn’t bad, and I will say I enjoyed Hugh Cave’s story, but there was nothing original about it. Robert E Howard would have done it better. However, we think that isn’t the point. This unpretentious collection is for those who want more stuff like this, in this format. Illustrated by Randy Broecker, but I think that it might have been better if they had used a selection of illustrators.

PS Publishing, please do a Lisa Tuttle collection for us.