Black Static

In the current issue of the magazine (#82/83) I review Paul Meloy's short story collection Electric Breakfast, which contained four stories I chose not to discuss as I'd already reviewed them previously.

For the sake of completeness, I've decided to post my reviews of those stories as they originally appeared.

From my Black Static #22 review of The End of The Line edited by Jonathan Oliver:-

The End of The Line brings together twenty stories based on the underground railway, though in some cases that definition is rather stretched, and on occasion the underground setting seems a little bit arbitrary rather than something essential to the story. A case in point would be opening story 'Bullroarer'* by Paul Meloy, in which a man on a tube train has an encounter with an entity that empowers him to be avenged on the tormentor of his childhood, the story beautifully written, albeit not Meloy's usual in your face style, with a keen appreciation of the heartbreak of first love and how the early events in our lives can echo on into adulthood.

*Published in Electric Breakfast under the title 'Remember Prosymnus'

From my Black Static #30 review of Gutshot edited by Conrad Williams:-

More flash fiction than not, zombie hunger is explained in terms of Indian trickster mythology for Paul Meloy's clever but slight 'Carrion Cowboy'

From my Black Static #36 review of Visions Fading Fast edited by Gary McMahon:-

By way of coda, we have 'Night Closures' by Paul Meloy, a far ranging, borderline stream of consciousness narrative rooted in 1970s England in which memories of events and the events themselves blur together, a mosaic gradually forming in which themes of bullying, neglect and loneliness shine brightly. We patch together the various pieces, details accumulating to suggest something truly macabre is taking place on the page, and finally what emerges is the story of a young boy and what happened to him, or perhaps a ghost story in which everyone appears to be a ghost, all leading up to the final terrible, heartrending denouement.

My Black Static #38 review of the novella Dogs With Their Eyes Shut:-

The latest instalment in Paul Meloy's emerging cosmology, DOGS WITH THEIR EYES SHUT ties in to previous stories detailing the conflict between the Firmament Surgeons and the Autoscopes, stories which have appeared in various magazines, including those from TTA Press, and are assembled en masse in the collection Islington Crocodiles. Of particular note, it continues the adventures of Lesley, who we first met in the British Fantasy Award winning story 'Black Static', from which this magazine took its name.

Fascinated by dogs as a child, the unnamed protagonist moves into a caravan park where he is befriended by Bix, and the canine's companionship opens him up to strange dreams of a place called Quay-Endula and the young woman Lesley, who captains the ship Rogue Angela and sails in search of salvage to snatch from the grasp of the Toyceivers and their Outrage Contraptions. Along the way he learns something of his true identity and heritage, the role he is to play in the coming war, but before he can get to grips with that our hero must travel to Quay-Endula with Bix and save Lesley from the Flyblown Man.

Meloy has produced a complex, convoluted story, with a plot that constantly twists and turns, one in which his dexterity at balancing very human concerns against the greater cosmic backdrop shines through. Central to it all is the richness of his creation, with Lesley in a fantasy template world of taverns and murky backstreets, of fighting ships and funicular railways that feels as real as it is marvellous, a place where she interacts with extraordinary people in an ordinary way, a manner that adds depth to the other concerns, the threat of war with a merciless enemy. Similarly in our world the narrator's love of dogs and memories of an idyllic childhood are juxtaposed with talk of Firmament Surgeons and Autoscopes, Paladins and Ingress Gantries, elements that play off each other to stunning effect. With hindsight, the war between Firmament Surgeons and Autoscopes has a Miltonian feel to it, a battle between legions of angels and their fallen brethren, with the fate of all Creation hanging in the balance, while on a less serious note, the metal frames that snatch ships from our world to that of the Quays put me in mind of nothing so much as those grab machines they have in seaside amusement parks. Meloy's invention can't be faulted, with some memorable scenes of mayhem vividly realised on the page as the Toyceivers fly their Outrage Contraptions, and who can forget such wonderfully named villains as the Flyblown Man and Nurse Melt. And, as a final incentive, for those with a dog fetish there is plenty here to make you feel vindicated in your support of man's best friend. At the end we're left thoroughly satisfied and at the same time aching for more, and more is what Meloy promises, with the warning that it's all going off in Lakenheath.