Black Static

Quick recap - for those who haven't followed the plot so far, Going Back (Dark Regions Press paperback, 216pp, $16.95) is a collection of short stories by Tony Richards, a Black Static irregular. The collection was originally published in the UK by Elastic Press back in 2007, and this new edition contains four extra stories, three of which first appeared in Black Static. I reviewed the collection in the magazine when it first appeared, and don't feel I can justify doing so again on the basis of four more stories. Instead I've reprised the 2007 review on the website, and am now going to add some additional comments regarding the new material.

The Sentinels

This beauty originally appeared in Black Static #3, and my take is that it's a stealth vampire story, with saguaro cacti in lieu of bloodsuckers. Thwarted in love, Rick drives off into the desert in a huff, only to first lose his way and then crash. He takes shelter in a circle of giant saguaros, or perhaps they surround him, and when a puma comes hunting a transformation of sorts takes place. My only quibble is that the circumstances, or rather the mind set, that sees Rick get into this mess requires him to be a tad more stupid than is credible, but it is only a quibble and I guess most of us have been fools for love, or some close approximation. Richards is excellent at capturing the mood of the desert, the sense that this is a hostile and totally alien environment, one in which Rick doesn't belong, can only be prey unless he makes some kind of compromise. The brooding saguaros are the embodiment of this menace, but they also offer Rick an out, just as soon as he accepts the gift they have to offer, makes himself over in their image. The last lines of the story underline the point, that of a shift in perspective which sees prey become predator, and reality realign around this metamorphosis.

Pages From a Broken Book

A story that first saw print in #7, and with a hapless male protagonist who learns the perils of online dating the hard way. Abandoned by his partner of some years, Rob is anxious to get back in the game and he gets lucky on his very first try online, finding a woman who seems to be perfect for him, only as the relationship progresses and her behaviour becomes ever stranger, doubts about Lara take hold. Richards is spot on at portraying the interaction of people dating, the uncertainties and perils of getting to know somebody new, of wanting to be liked, to create a good impression, only here they are taken to the max in a tale with an unnatural fusion of technology and magic at its centre, one which plugs in to all our fears about how people can misrepresent themselves online. Dream girl Lara (Croft, perhaps) is the intangible given form in a story that's Weird Science cranked up to the max and treated to a deadpan makeover, with a subtext about how spirituality and human values are being undermined in our bright new future. The moral, if we need one, is not so much be careful what you wish for as a warning to be careful what wishes for you. And it's not only the book that gets broken.

Night Game

From the pages of Black Static #5, a story that put me in mind of many others in which strangers come to backward and isolated towns (e.g. Kingsport and Mirocaw), where curiously inbred natives celebrate peculiar festivals, only for Richards the occasion marked is something as innocuous as a football match. Salesman Eric Menway finds himself becalmed in the Midlands town of Shaddaton, where all the shops are closed and the streets deserted, the only person he sees a young boy minding the hotel he books into for the night. Everyone is off at the local stadium to see two local teams take on each other, and as he likes a bit of footer himself Eric goes down to join them, but things are not quite as he expected. There's an atmosphere of menace pervading this story, but it's grounded in more tangible feelings of despair and desuetude generated by the blighted urban landscape. Shaddaton and its inhabitants are to all intents and purposes spectres at the feast, though whether this is their actual state or simply metaphorical is open to debate. If it had a soundtrack, Springsteen's 'Glory Days' would provide the backbeat, as the people of the town cling onto past glory, memories of a moment that is made concrete and unnaturally prolonged thanks to their desire. They hold on to the beautiful game as a contrast to the ugliness of their lives; not so much a source of genuine hope as straw for a drowning man.

Birchiam Pier

This story originally appeared in the anthology The British Invasion, edited by Tim Lebbon, Christopher Golden and James A. Moore. The story is told from the perspective of a loving father, torn between the desire to keep his son safe from the perils of the modern world and the fear of smothering the boy's vitality and confidence through being overly protective. The eponymous pier is a symbol of better days, the father's memories of his own youth and the adventures he had in its shadow, including the loss of his virginity, before the structure became unsound and was closed to the public. But for his son and the group of children who come to the pier in the middle of the night it has a more profound significance. This is a story that deftly draws the reader in and makes us identify with the character, share in his concern to do the right thing and uncertainty as to what that is. The world is a dangerous place, but do we protect our loved ones from that or arm them to confront it? There are no easy answers, and Richards' story makes that central, but there's more to it than just that. The father's fumbling first experience of sex is contrasted with the force fed wisdom of Sex Education 101 that his son undergoes at a far earlier age. There's a strong feeling of nostalgia, of lost innocence, and the fear that in compelling them to grow up so quickly we have denied children the right to grow at all. It's a moving story, and the last line is heartbreaking.

Okay, that's me done. There's a link below to the Dark Regions Press website if you're feeling at all tempted.