Genre: SF, Dystopian, Slipstream, Eco-Fiction, Gothic Horror
LGBTQ+ Category: Ace, Gay, Non-Binary. No one in this collection identifies themselves to the reader as any specific identity. Two characters exclusively use they/them (one is a human character, one is a character from another species that transitions to human; that romantic relationship could be read as m/m or m/enby) & the ace character is not announced but there’s an ace/queerplatonic relationship that could be read as friendship or romance.
Reviewer: Tony
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About The Book
The Shivering Ground blends future and past, earth and otherworldliness in surreal tales that shimmer with art, philosophy, dance, film, and music.
A haunting medieval song in the mouth of a guard, an 1800s greatcoat on the shoulders of a playwright experiencing a quantum love affair, alien worlds both elsewhere and in the ruined water at our feet: these stories startle us with the richness and emptiness of what we absolutely know and simultaneously cannot pin into place.
In the tender emotions, hidden ecological or relational choices, and the sheer weight of a compelling voice, readers “hear” each story, endlessly together and apart.
The Review
The Shivering Ground is a collection of eleven mostly short stories, dour dirges to the dead and the dying hopes of mankind in the ‘days’ leading up to the well deserved extinction of human life on Earth, amongst other things.
An intelligently and elegantly written indictment of the human spirit and faults that probably should be avoided if late night reading is your thing, as I discovered. Haunting, unnerving, not quite horror stories with an underlying theme of impact of meaningless war and destruction on the spirit of people ranging from despair, confusion and / or acceptance and adoption.
Alongside that are a background of natural disasters and man-made ones, including man-made extinctions, like the passenger pigeon.
The stories range from a home schooled young girl and the mystery of door that goes nowhere while she watches without understanding her mother and her lover dance around each other while the father is at work, to a manic would-be ‘Dr Frankenstein’ reanimating rats in his cellar, along with the apathy of the well to do.
There are moments of magic and beauty in the writing here, but next to no joy to be had by the characters. An author to watch, but maybe an acquired taste.
The Reviewer
Tony is an Englishman living amongst the Welsh and the Other Folk in the mountains of Wales. He lives with his partner of thirty-six years, four dogs, two ponies, various birds, and his bees. He is a retired lecturer and a writer of no renown but that doesn’t stop him enjoying what he used to think of as ‘sensible’ fantasy and sf. He’s surprised to find that if the story is well written and has likeable characters undergoing the trails of life, i.e. falling in love, falling out of love, having a bit of nooky (but not all the time), fending off foes, aliens and monsters, etc., he’ll be happy as a sandperson who has just offloaded a wagon of sand at the going market price. As long as there’s a story, he’s in. He aims to write fair and honest reviews. If he finds he is not the target reader he’ll move on.