Illuminations: The Friday Flash Fiction Anthology, edited by Paul Graham Raven

Illuminations: The Friday Flash Fiction Anthology, edited by Paul Graham Raven, gathers together sixty-six tales by eight different authors in a charity project to benefit the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Its genesis was an exercise in motivation by Gareth L. Powell; he committed to writing a new flash fiction piece every Friday and posting it on his website under “Friday Flash Fiction.” Soon other writers were following suit, and a selection of their material was collected and ordered, mostly by “thematic flow.” The result is an uneven collection with flashes of both sophisticated craft and amateurish composition.

Raven explains in his introduction that ordering the pieces by writer would have been “lumpy.” From a reader’s point of view, I agree with him and am thankful for the stories’ thematic collocation. From a reviewing standpoint, I’m opting for lumpy and will examine them in eight blocks, one per author. Hopefully, this will make a discussion of the work more meaningful and less disjointed.

Neil Beynon offered us nine stories:

A man loves a woman who is already taken, and they make a decision on which of the possible “Paths” they will follow. This non-speculative story effectively gives us what we need to infer the details of their situation while revealing how differences in our subjective experiences make such sticky situations even more complex than they may appear. I felt the writing could have been a little smoother. What path would you follow?

The epistolary “Dear Sarah” constructs an entire energy field through which passengers that travel from one place to another must jump, and explores what happens when the letters’ authors discover something wrong in the field. The premise serves as the backdrop for a few ruminations on interconnectedness, death, and free choice. Too much conceptual ambition prevents this intriguing piece from hitting home and reaching Sarah.

If you had an envelope which contained the details of your demise, would you open it or let it turn into “Faded Letters”? The protagonist’s inability to make a decision causes his wife, Sarah, to leave him, and things just get worse from there. The extrapolative handling of this oft-explored theme was competent, and the pacing worked. I wish the writing would have been more polished and less faded.

Perhaps one can regain lost loves on “The Edge of the World,” or perhaps one cannot. The imagery used to evoke emotion in this piece seemed melodramatic and somewhat trite to me, the conclusion foregone. There’s really no need to travel to the edge of the world if we’re going to experience or learn this little.

Will travels through a hellish, lizard-infested labyrinth to reach the “Centre Point.” Exactly what the “Point” contributes to this (wouldn’t the word “Centre” be description enough?), I’m not sure. More importantly, due to the choppy writing style and sudden ending, I’m not sure I could find a Point, central or otherwise, to this tale.

Strange goings-on in the garden involving the narrator and his friend, Eric, inform “When I Was Bad,” which is not bad as a story. The mock-child first person seemed over-stylized to me, but there was enough happening to sustain me. The ending seemed a little stylistically jarring, though on a plot level it worked well.

When Joe Hill beholds his reflection, this speculative piece’s titular “The Ghost in the Glass,” he finds confirmation of the terrible price one pays for taking out loans. The concept in this tale appealed to me, as did the pacing and the dialogue. The glass of Beynon’s prose was transparent enough to capture the ghost.

The absence of “Cliché” in this tale about a man offering a woman a box and her returning it to him makes it an interesting one. What does the box contain? Beynon’s writing could still use polish—an unfortunate distraction—but the idea is well-handled.

Contemplations on the cyclical nature of our existence drive the opening and closing spokes of “Life is a Wheel.“ This sentiment is elegantly demonstrated by the action in the middle section, making this one of the tighter, more artful constructions by this author.

Shaun C. Green was featured in nine stories:

The first-person protagonist of “I am Colony” has a strange experience in hyperspace which radically alters his existence, transporting his body and consciousness in an unexpected way. The premise is intriguing and the writing competent, but I found the scale of events too vast to be encompassed appropriately by this nugget-sized narrative.

When Mr. Curnow pleads with a Father for a special type of application, he encounters the insurmountable “Terminator” of bureaucratic regulations. Though the writing suffered from adverb-itis, I enjoyed the scene and the details used to convey characters and situation.

In “This Urban Aesthetic,” Raul steps through a portal into the past. Does he travel there merely to obtain a memento, or is there more going on? This unadulterated SF story contains pleasant, if not exactly shocking, observations on the relationship of humans with the past, and grounds them in an appropriate emotional context.

A man travelling across “nodes” in search of some raunchy sex is not prepared to “Slip It In.” Some of the descriptions were funny, though I’m not sure whether this was intentional. I didn’t think Green provided sufficient justification for the turn of events; considering that the narrator suggests he’s been here before, why is this the first time this happens?

Anyone burdened with the responsibilities of the viewers of “Vote Now!” ought to consider their choices carefully before casting their ballots. This piece worked perfectly for me. It offers a plausible speculation and articulates it succinctly, as well as having some fun with Space Opera settings. I feel comfortable in voting it the best of Green’s stories here.

How would one react if one experienced the “O Radiance, O Blessed Light” of an angel? This a captivating premise, but the seeming lack of emotional impact to the narrator after one key event made it difficult for me to entirely suspend my disbelief. Sweeping, biblical imagery was almost redemptive enough to save it.

The drunken Joseph of “Softly Softly Catchee Monkey” thinks he hears steps, not his own, as he stumbles home. Is someone after him? I would describe this piece as a moderate success. Though its SF staple is predictable, the suspense mostly works. Unfortunately, Joseph wasn’t a character I found myself caring for, and so in a sense, I was grateful for the monkey-business ending.

The “Grey Matter” of this story’s protagonist may contain more than he lets on through his slangish diction. “Micro chipses” in the head is a familiar SF conceit, but I enjoyed the way Green focuses here on the classism and psychological dimension of the experience, rather than the technological details. The slang may make this one a bit hard on some readers, but reading it aloud will save your grey matter some unnecessary struggle.

The search for “Satisfaction” by the travelers between parallel realities in this tale brought to my mind an anti-Voltairean notion; rather than believe in the locution of Leibnizian optimism that “Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possible,” as Candide’s Dr. Pangloss did, they maintain that their search is meaningful precisely because a world better than ours exists somewhere in the infinitude of worlds. The reverse mechanism of the story, as observed by the protagonist, whereby one tends to find a world particularly ill-suited to one’s needs or dispositions, seems little more than an arbitrary narrative construct for confirming his own beliefs. I personally don’t object to the belief that a search may provide its own meaning, but I found that the message overburdened this tale.

Gareth D. Jones contributed nine tales:

In “All Change,” a crew’s jump through hyperspace causes a very specific genetic alteration. This tale seemed to serve mostly as a build-up to the ending, which raised more questions than it resolved and felt uncomfortably cutesy to me. Also, the writing wasn’t particular strong.

The “Frozen” scene described in this tale contains intriguing elements. I’m not sure I understand the mechanisms at work, but I’m also unsure that was essential for the story’s effect. The idea of capturing a moment in time seems particularly appropriate for this length of work, and as such, I found it successful.

The central idea of “Built by Moonlight,” which starts with a decree by a king to have a ball, is robust enough for the tale to be built by more than moonlight. Unfortunately, some clumsiness in the execution prevents this clever and emotionally impactful tale from reaching its full potential.

The “Delayed Reaction” of the “biolithic creature” at the heart of this uber-flashy flash has some far-reaching and unexpected consequences. The creature’s reaction may be delayed, but the reader’s pleasant reaction to this well-realized bit of fiction should be immediate.

Ralph tries to do something nice for his wife, Mary. Will he “Get Knitted” instead? This tale presents nothing new; the subject has been addressed by infinitely more biting and memorable stories since SF’s heyday, and I didn’t find the writing to be of an acceptable standard, either.

The “Precious Cargo” carried by the freighter, Genevieve, after a communications exchange with a probe ship may be more precious than the Earth observers appreciate. Unfortunately, this story was neither precious nor surprising. (Also, the word “blueprints” appears as one word in one sentence and as two separate words in another—just one instance of the numerous typographical mistakes afflicting this anthology).

Anyone familiar with the Hans Christian Andersen tale that informs “The Emperor’s New Force Field” will know how it ends after three sentences. In addition to this predictability, it stretches plausibility beyond the original, which was already a fairy tale. Transcribing something into SF terms does not make it SF, nor does it make it necessarily interesting to read. A spelling error like the “to” in “none to pleased” didn’t help matters.

Propelled by a wafer-thin verbal conceit “The Alliterati,” which presents monks going about their business on an alien planet, should be enough to make even the most patient reader emit a grievous groan.

“The Gondolier” takes a moment to reflect on the beauty of his surroundings before we are treated to an obligatory surprise ending. Given the extremely short length and simple idea, this piece is suitable, though I feel it could have incorporated some irony to greater dramatic effect.

The anthology contains seven pieces by Dan Pawley:

Upon waking from cryo-sleep, Jenny, aboard a spaceship that’s been “Adrift” due to a technical malfunction and has thus been in space much longer than originally intended, must wrestle with what has happened back home in the intervening time. Pawley handles the subject matter intelligently and with skill, creating a memorable, emotionally charged tale that should leave no reader adrift.

What would life be like if we all received “Doppelgangers,” each of which was exactly the opposite of us, identical in appearance save for a negative of our clothes’ colors? This tale plays some intriguing riffs on the familiar doppelganger theme. Though the ending seems more literal, and therefore perhaps explicitly moralistic in comparison to the earlier more surreal sections, this trip is certainly the opposite of dull.

A child narrates the events that comprise “My School Trip,” which, this term, involves visiting the zoo. This piece makes great use of the backdrop, deftly building in extrapolations of current-day events whilst never deviating from a realistic child’s perception and motivation. A speculative delight.

In the generically-titled “Abduction,” Rob is walking home when strange lights appear above. This plot description sounds almost like an earlier story, “Softly Softly Catchee Monkey,” a symptom of the unfortunate commonness of the idea. The technique is suitable, but the piece delivers no surprises. It certainly won’t be abducting any readers with its originality.

Strange events affect a global communication network in “Great Old One Ex Machina.” Is humanity under attack? The title may suggest the outlandish, over-the-top nature of the events that ensue after the initial communications disruption. I found that the mostly expository storytelling distanced me from events, and I didn’t find much humor in this tale. With or without the ex machina, a disappointment for this reader.

“The Natives are Restless Tonight,” and the fact that they belong to the Uyoku Hegemony and not some oppressed Earth people doesn’t diminish their discontent one bit. This tale conjures up a vivid scene laden with dramatic potential. Unfortunately, due to the constraints of the flash form, some of this potential remains untapped. A partial success.

An Earther living on the planet Hesperia for two years may find himself feeling so much a native that leaving to return to his planet of origin may represent little more than “A Kind of Homecoming.” I enjoyed the emotional implications of this tale and the quiet, understated description, which made its points through attention to detail. It successfully brought home its notion.

We have six tales penned by Justin Pickard:

The newscaster Gutchluck, confronted by this tale’s narrator, is reputed to possess many unusual talents, including seeing the future in the “Patterns in Traffic” and being able to speak to mountains with her cell phone. This tale delivers a finely crafted excursion into urban surrealism. It packs quite a lot in, too, not skimping on characterization or detail. Finely patterned work.

Momentous events are poised to happen in “Celerity,” which involves the flying of a kite. It’s certainly a swift read, though not entirely light in subject matter.

Anna and Sam become “Paper Boats in the Blue Hour.” Fuelled by sugar and caffeine, they find themselves riding a wave of creative energy. How long will it last? Pickard has crafted an impressive piece, demonstrating a fine command of technique. The length of sentences and the stream of creative imagery perfectly captures the rapturous mood of interior discovery driven by caffeine. There is much insight here, especially for anyone who has ever struggled with the creative process.

Noah and his date enjoy a meal at a Chinese restaurant, where more than the standard “Fortune Cookie” is provided. This is a clever, accomplished story which manages to fashion interesting characters and a lively setting out of quotidian elements. My cookie clearly predicts: Readers will enjoy.

An illicit “Test Drive” transports Sam, Dylan, Zoe, Tom, and Hywel farther afield than they probably expected. The snappy dialogue and short, clipped description infuses this tale with a brisk pace. While the abundance of characters can be initially confusing, each is well-depicted, and keeping track of their individual traits is not essential to enjoy this fun ride.

The complexity of what “Fatima’s Funeral” represents for Samira and her brother, Karim, makes this richly textured tale worthy of several readings. The technological extrapolation is on a par with the psychological, and the detail-laden backdrop contains enough material for additional flash pieces or even longer stories. Not to be missed.

Gareth L. Powell contributed nine flashes of fiction:

William observes a “Snowball” from a dome on the surface of the Moon. The pacing in this very short flash piece is effective, the setting works, and, most importantly, the revelation of the last line is entirely consistent with what we know (and don’t know). This poignant, speculative outing is as fresh as snow.

Contemplating “The Point Furthest from the Sun” may lead one to inaction, even as a loved one is having a rough time. I missed the significance of the title, which, based on the skill of the writing, I’m sure was chosen with care. I found it intriguing. The repetition contained in the last two sentences certainly emphasizes the importance of what we’ve learned, but I’m not sure it heightened the experience for me.

The narrator of this tale learns of the horrors inflicted on some “Fresh Meat.” The attention to detail in this very compressed narrative, in conjunction with the sparse, polished sentences and strong rhythm, worked to make it a chilling experience.

A simple misunderstanding at an Amsterdam “Coffee House” informs this quiet, observational piece. It vividly captures a moment in the interaction between two characters and, through implication, portrays the characters and setting more vividly than might appear at first glance. Perfect coffee house reading.

Ed, on his way to take pictures of a crash site, stops at a roadside café and sparks up some conversation with the waitress, “Natalie.” There is an almost Ballardian sense of fragmentation and despair in this well-written tale, which artfully utilizes technological imagery to build tension in the setting and refract the character’s inner selves. An impressive feat given the space, this riveting piece transcends “flash” and approaches a less formalized version of the Ballardian “compressed novel,” in the best possible manner.

An unplanned hyperspace return to Earth provides Diego and Carla with a direct glimpse of cosmic “Lost Toys.” Powell again manages to imagine an intriguing situation and justify it with a rationale that is not only dramatically plausible but also thought-provoking. Some descriptive details, in particular, stand out. A tale to be found and enjoyed.

The revelation that ensues the narrator’s “Thai Curry” dinner with Nina is conveyed with elegance and emotion in this charged, biting, sad tale. With skill aplenty, Powell artfully builds not only a situation, but a mood, and places it in a broader context. More bittersweet than curry, but just as delectable.

In “The Red King’s Nursery,” Lawrence is vastly outnumbered and hopelessly outgunned by an enemy which, in the form of a talking remote, seems overly chatty and casual to be truly menacing. The whys and wherefores become revealed by the tale’s end. Though there were some clever moments and engaging writing, I didn’t find myself caring enough for the character to make this piece work on the psychological front, and I couldn’t ignore the weakness of the ending enough to make it work on a plot level either.

On his six-month watch aboard a starship forty years from its destination, with the remainder of the crew asleep in their pods, Kurt finds himself on “The Long Walk Aft” and the terrible fate to which it leads. The un-subtle situation is described in the no-frills manner in which its protagonist experiences it, and the detachment and realism only serve to strengthen the inevitability of its ending. It brought to mind Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations.” I enjoyed the image of a book being recycled for food; that seems somehow appropriate, under the circumstances.

Martin McGrath was featured eight times:

“Stone Must Roll” starts with a description of the Balkans that could just as well belong in a geophysical opinion piece or a political article on socioeconomics. The above-flash-length piece then zooms in on self-made oligarch, Sebastian Syphus, all the while maintaining the same narrative strategy of “mock article,” including a first-person reporter. As a character portrait, in this format, it works well, though I was left with the desire to see how many more stones would roll and where they would roll to.

The narrator of “Dust to Dust” combats extreme physical discomfiture, with at best moderate success. But what is happening on the psychological plane? This tale maintains our interest through terse description and a dramatic setting, turning dust into something more exciting than we might think.

The fate of a “Hungry Girl” is sealed by the narrator of this incisive short. Skillfully taking us in an unexpected direction, it keeps our attention through the non-authorial voice and the immediacy of the situation we witness. Few readers should be left hungry.

“The Unexpectedly Existential Life of Margaret Tome” touches on some interesting philosophical notions in the life trajectory of the titular character and her daughter, Anabelle. Unfortunately, rather than emerging from events naturally, the “observations” are explicitly told to us; things appear to happen in support of the ideas, rather than vice versa. And while the introduction of “factity” was thought-provoking, I was surprised we weren’t told of Sartre’s “bad faith,” since Margaret’s decision regarding her daughter’s upbringing would have provided such an illustrative example of it.

In “Eskragh,” we are treated to not one but two funerals. Despite some distractions caused by the technique (e.g. “his fingers hard as bone and cold as death” not only supplied two clichés but also the added confusion of comparing fingers, which are partially bone, to bone), there were effective moments of atmosphere and the evocation of loss here.

“The Decision that Changed the Life of Fabrice Colliseo” begins with a literary image as old, at least, as the fifteenth-century poet Jorge Manrique’s Coplas a la muerte de su padre (Stanzas about the Death of his Father). The first paragraph belabors the image, robbing it of its simplicity and power, and essentially turning it into an extended metaphor in support of cumbersome metaphysical exposition. Fortunately, the rest of the story improved somewhat, though I never felt like Fabrice’s decision was justified in the context of his psychology or the fictional setting. This piece seemed more like a pastiche of other works than an original ideation; I doubt the decision to read it will change the life of many readers.

The narrator of this tale witnesses a kid becoming a “Proper Little Soldier,” even as an older man makes a tactical error of high cost in the resistance war against the Wellsian pods. The backdrop presents nothing conceptually exciting, but perhaps it doesn’t need to, given the suspense, tension, and pace. This makes for one proper little flash of resistance fighting.

Sept disconnects wires from his head and in so doing begins the painful, disconcerting process of “Leaving the World.” This archetypal cyberpunk premise could have fueled a tale tighter and more kinetic. As it is, questionable logic, gratuitous description, and a lack of emotional investment pushed this toward the humdrum end of the spectrum for me; I think I’ll opt to stay in the World, wires and all.

Paul Graham Raven, editor of the anthology, also donned the authorial hat nine times (or perhaps he just donned it once and made it last for nine stories):

In “Alex in Hinterland,” the titular Alex spends time in the Hinterland on a talking, tangible Cloud, against the advice of his peers. What he discovers was not readily apparent to me, though I did get a sense of the story’s implications. The writing seemed somewhat diffuse and the piece as a whole not particularly sharply etched.

A vastly evolved emergent intelligence decides to baptize itself with the name ”J” after the square root of negative one. I have no objection to hard SF density, but I’m not sure the profusion of technical terminology in this tale generated a convincing sense of what forces might be at work or helped to maintain the reader’s interest. This tale is weighed down by too much detail and a not particularly inspired ending to achieve what I think it sets out to.

When the Old Lady Evans passes away, the kids are finally able to steal into her house and discover what an “aristos” keeps for the purpose of entertainment, which may be nothing less than “The Last Bird.” I found the attention to detail and imagery engaging, and though the ending was predictable, the last sentence captured an ironic note that fit snugly within the emotional context of the piece.

In this parable of sorts, talking household appliances worry and fret about “The New Arrival.” This tale, consisting primarily of appliance banter, feels underwhelming, and the ending may be too smart for its own good.

The child narrator of “Daddy in Stone” recounts a weekly Sunday visit to the family’s senescent, mentally frail father. This slice-of-life contains poignant observations and tactfully addresses a delicate but everyday subject. I wasn’t convinced by the narrating voice, which felt like an adult speaking as a child, but there’s enough worthwhile material here for me to recommend it nonetheless.

The young Fentus completes his initiation ceremony and learns some “Secrets of the Faith” shortly thereafter from one of the Order’s priests. The themes, dialogue, characters, and style in this tale offer nothing new, nor do the particulars of their combination. This is all retread material, and the last few sentences augment, rather than diminish, the effect of overall cliché.

The “Alien Abduction” at hand in this tale entails what one might expect. The unfortunate lack of anything new (including the ending) and less-than-stellar writing (for example, the repetitive use of “restrained” and “restraint” in consecutive paragraphs) will likely end up abducting the reader’s time and offer little in exchange.

James and Alex present an optimistic re-evaluation of “Sturgeon’s Law” and consider how it might apply to their “scavving”-based existences. I found the premise entertaining and the characters appropriately depicted for the dramatic purposes in play. As a result, the tale falls in the ten percent margin of Sturgeon’s Law for this reader.

The “physically disadvantaged” narrator of “Oh, For the Life of a Sailor!” joins the Navy, and his decision opens up an unexpected door into his future. Well-realized details help sustain the sense of plausibility in this implausible scenario, and the narrative rhythm helps move things along swiftly.

Here ends the survey of the sixty-six fiction flashes in Illuminations.

Despite the presence of some economical, finely crafted visions and other more escapist entertainments, this is an unbalanced gathering of fiction. There were some standout pieces—primarily concentrated in the works of Justin Pickard and Gareth L. Powell and partially scattered throughout the remaining authors’ contributions—but there were more tales here than not that failed to deliver the goods. Being confined to flash length should not provide justification for using clichés, committing grammar and spelling mistakes, or penning pieces whose entire raison d’etre is a “twist” ending. Styles and themes ranged from frivolity to profundity, and from the sixty-six stories, I heartily recommend about twenty, and I’m partial to about a dozen. Whether that is enough for a collective endorsement I’ll leave up to the reader to decide.

Publisher: Odd Two Out (2008)
Price: £6.99 (All proceeds from this anthology will be donated to the NSPCC)
Paperback: 144 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9558662-0-3