Ultimately the voice inside is that of author Michael J Weller, but at the funeral of the last Cosmic Crusader – Fay Fairweather – 3World In 4Time Mike Weller finds himself sat next to his detective character Jim Pannifer, listening to Rev Ian Beaumont recount an early story from Crusaders mythology – that of the Angel of Powers – in which the voice of an angel speaks inside the heads of Fay and the other Crusaders, signalling the advent of a force of great paranormal good in their world and, more specifically, the Otherworld.
Another voice inside is that of Sir Michael Spearate, the Satanic Whisperer, able to manipulate every thought, word and deed of his chosen-puppets for the purpose of directing the world into conflict, destruction and apocalyptic terror. His is the voice inside the Earth Corporation's ladder of organisation, the voice inside a backwards-Biff Scourge – now an inverted skinhead and white man in reverse – and a voice on-the-inside (Brixton prison) speaking as a sinister preacher to inmate Pugh, with lips/voice out-of-sync.
Hmm, Slow Science Fictions is a prose series out-of-sync with conventional storytelling and, at times, even with itself. Here, there is a mood of fatalism to the near-pathological insistence of Weller's narrative rhythms as a glimpse is provided of a tit-for-tat conflict between MJ Weller and his fictional self, and again as this latter Weller – in the funeral congregation – is confronted with not just a superhero team in extremis, but values too, and – fantasy reverberating into the realm of reality – this Slow Science Fiction series itself. Upending stuff.
28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from Mike Weller, 3 Queen Adelaide Court, Queen Adelaide Road, Penge, London SE20 7DZ. E-mail: mikejweller(at)hotmail.com Site: www.homebakedbooks.co.uk
Additional 3World in 4Time comix, pics, videos, and comments: www.4time.wordpress.com, www.earthco.wordpress.com, www.blog2blog.wordpress.com, www.addingcombe.wordpress.com, www.myspace.com/mickweller, www.egnep.blogspot.com
With the ripples from the splash caused by last issue's impact still lapping at my brain, the still waters of Albedo One #33 signal a return to – if not more settled, then less startling – genre fiction, well-crafted and likeable, but a little stagnant all the same despite a cluster of suicide-touched tales. Only Simon Kewin's affecting, chilling post-9/11 science fiction Live From The Continuing Explosion offers depth enough for drowning.
Live deliberates on the strategic rationale of a suicide bombing viewed in cosmic slow-mo by the whole planet as a self-contained time-dilation seals off the explosion in a hundred metre diameter sphere, dictating that the still-occurring atrocity continue to relentlessly unfold with excruciating clarity, never allowing it be confined to history. Indubitably designed as a condemnation, the story's complexity inadvertently tips proceedings in favour of suicide bombing with-media-savvy, its apotheosis of the bomber-as-artist better suited to extremist instructional booklets on the al-Qaeda method of martyrdom than to War On Terror propaganda. Still, thought-provoking stuff.
Also on offer is standard-issue, suspenseful dark fantasy and intimate science fiction: in Michael Mathews' A Trail Of Stars Swirling a drowned daughter returns home reanimated to self-deluded parents; in Andrew McKenna's Barrelhouse a street urchin is ruthlessly conditioned by a malignant cult; in Matthew Sanborn Smith's Marissa Marissa the organic separation of conjoined twins signals mankind's next evolutionary step; and in Anil Menon's A Sky Full Of Constants the possibility of tweaking fundamental constants causes a philosophical disagreement with the universe which impacts the lives of two Indian physicists.
Surprisingly, humour dominates the remaining fiction, which is hit-and-miss fare but with a sensible brevity: in Blonde On Blonde, by Geoffrey Maloney, a taxidermied Jayne Mansfield really should have stuffed opposing candidate Marilyn Monroe in the presidential contest; Oisin In Templeogue, by Ed Wood, is a superficial up-dating of a popular story from Irish mythology, retold to the beat of a night on the rip; The Genie, by S.K. Twyford, sees a well-endowed goblin leave a trail of misfortune for a reluctant wisher; and – you won't believe it – Ticket To India, by Aongus Murtagh, is One Foot In The Grave set in an ageist society with compulsory euthanasia.
The business of writing/publishing is discussed both in the Severian column and in purposeful interiews with Geoff Ryman – author of Was and Air – and Sam Miller – author of On The Brinks and The Redemption Factory. Famous Monsters provides exceedingly readable reviews of speculative fiction, and the mixed-mediums iconography of Mario Sanchez Nevado haunts the cover.
64 A4 pages for £3.95 / €5.95, available from Albedo One.