Subtle Edens: An Anthology of Slipstream Fiction, edited by Allen Ashley

Slipstream is a genre that defies classification, in my opinion. In his introduction to Elastic Press’s Subtle Edens: An Anthology of Slipstream Fiction, the editor, Allen Ashley, makes a game attempt, invoking such luminaries as J. G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, and Robert A. Heinlein as primogenitors of the field. For Ashley, a strong undercurrent of sociological satire and a sense of reality as infinitely malleable seem to be the cornerstones of the slipstream genre, and he has chosen 22 stories that reflect this, to one degree or another…

Mike O’Driscoll starts the anthology off strong with “And Zero at the Bone.” The story hinges on perceptions and patterns, the latter of which O’Driscoll weaves throughout with a deft hand. Patterns of belief, patterns of illusion, patterns of emotion, even patterns of color come into play, driving things in a circle that grows ever tighter as things approach the climax. The patterns form a metaphorical layer that is breached as things come to an end and paranoia gives way to understanding while uncertainty becomes acceptance. O’Driscoll accomplishes this with a stark prose which is nearly at odds with the story itself. His repetition of key elements—the aforementioned patterns—is subtle and well done, pushing the story on without becoming confusing. My only complaint was the ending, where I feel O’Driscoll gives in to a cinematic trope to tie things up in a less than satisfactory way. I think that perhaps too much is given away at the end, where the less said the better.

“Darkroom” by Nina Allan is a quiet, moving tale of gentle obsession. I could not help but feel sympathy for each character, and that is a credit to Allan’s way with a turn of phrase. The speculative elements are ghostly things, only barely glimpsed as events progress at a leisurely pace. Obsessions, gentle or not, are passed between characters like a cold. Allan gives “Darkroom” soft edges, blurring the line between realities in order to give us a sense of the madness enveloping the undeserving protagonist. Though again, I find myself unhappy with the ending. It could either do with being shorter or longer, though I’m not sure which.

Joel Lane’s “Alouette” is a stark contrast to “Darkroom.” It falls more firmly into a classifiable genre than the previous two pieces—horror, in this case. It’s a short, unpleasant burst of a story, and that is why it works. The nursery school song of the title becomes a menacing chorus to society’s downward spiral. As the song gets longer, so the menace grows. The narrator is plunged into a situation in which there are no questions, no answers, only action and reaction, even if we are left unsure as to which is which. The ending is appropriately brutal, leaving us both repulsed and eager for the song to continue.

“Adrift” by Ian Shoebridge begins with a distinctly Kafkaesque opening that swiftly segues into a literal ocean of trouble and then back into a sea of philosophical unpleasantness. “Adrift” is written in a stilted, seemingly neo-archaic style, reminiscent of a fairy tale or fable, but instead comes off as pretentious. I got the feeling as I read that Shoebridge had a point to make throughout, and it cast a pall over the story. Still, despite this, there are several well-crafted sequences in “Adrift” which are much more subtle than the story they find themselves drowning in.

Jeff Gardiner’s “Phobophilia” centers on the idea of fear, appropriately enough. It’s a blessedly straightforward story, with characters that are imminently engaging, but despite this, it seems a trifle bland, especially when compared to the other stories in the anthology. Gardiner builds the story around a solid idea—fear and the reasons thereof—which has been fertile soil for a good many writers and will be for years to come. But there’s simply nothing special about “Phobophilia” to set it above any of these other attempts. Despite an attention-getting opening line, the piece reads like a paint-by-numbers dark fantasy or horror tale, with an unsatisfying upbeat conclusion that abruptly kills any tension that was there.

David A. Sutton opens “Mind-Forged Manacles” with a quote from William Blake, which I find to be the literary equivalent of poking a bull with a red Nerf spear—something is going to come of it, and it’s either going to be very good or very bad. Sutton manages to get the former result, if only by dint of the intriguing world he creates for us. There’s a strong vibe of pathos here as a bad situation goes steadily worse, but Sutton never lets it bog the story down in navel-gazing. Things move at an attention-keeping clip, mainly thanks to Sutton’s use of beautifully descriptive phrases to describe what’s going on and where it’s all happening.

Douglas Thompson begins “Icarus in Nouvelleville” with a quote as well, this time by Ovid. It’s an appropriate one, less metaphorical than Sutton’s use of Blake, and more literal. Thompson uses it to nicely catch us up to speed on the characters and then pulls a U-turn from there to get us into the meat of his story. There’s little subtlety with the satire in this one, as in Shoebridge’s “Adrift,” but unlike that particular piece, I don’t think Thompson intended there to be. Thompson puts his heart on his sleeve for all to see, and I’m with him right up until the ending, where I feel that he belabors his point just a bit too much. That said, there is a bit too much “tell” here, compared to “show” (which, considering the way it’s written, may be intentional), and it makes what should be a fairly whirlwind piece into a dust-devil-slow and easy to avoid one.

“The House Beneath Delgany Street” by Scott Brendel is an odd bit of fiction. It seems to chase its tail, leaving us with more questions than answers in the end. There’s a distinctly chilling sensation that pervades this piece, and it’s one which, despite the seemingly happy ending, does not fade after the end. Brendel leaves us with a sense of uncertainty that the plethora of quick, delightful character moments only makes worse, nudging it towards outright fear. He never quite pushes us over the edge, preferring instead to leave us dangling on the cusp, poised between confusion and terrible understanding. This sort of piece is exactly what I think of when I hear the term “slipstream.”

Neil Ayres and Aliya Whiteley give us dueling perspectives of the same event in “Overturned,” with the shifting emotional equilibrium to accompany them. There’s a strongly mingled current of dissatisfaction and loss running through each of the perspectives in a manner appropriate for each character (childlike, mature, resigned). That Ayres and Whiteley manage to balance it all so finely is impressive, considering how easily a piece like this can fall flat on its face. Too, the ambiguity of the ending goes a long way towards making “Overturned” something special. It is a slice-of-life tale, and just like life, there are no tidy endings to be had…the story continues.

“Man, Who Considers The Cosmos” by S. J. Hirons is a vicious fairy tale with some stunning turns of phrase that give it a darkly mythic edge. It is less a story than a warning of reality going sour. It shows without telling; Hirons leaves the thinking to the reader, a trick which forces us to come at the story from different angles in order to fully grasp what’s going on. And the trick of dividing the story into distinct chapters adds to the fairy-tale feel. It’s a well-written piece with much to recommend it.

D. W. Green, with “Nose Piercing,” spins us a story about puppets with a side order of satire. But the latter is light and never hammered home as it is elsewhere. Instead, we’re given a choice of targets and never led directly to any of them as the story comes to a gory (splintery?) ending in fine, action-cinema tradition. There’s a hint of Harlan Ellison in this one—it berates, but uncertainly, as if unsure of whether to champion the rebel or the rebelled against.

“Nomads of the Slipstream” by Jeff Gardiner is a wonderfully researched piece of nonfiction on the origins of and subsequent evolution of slipstream. The thesis is nuanced concerning slipstream’s place in modern literature, and there’s plenty of heavyweight name-dropping to back it up. The problem with this is that it raises the bar at an unfair juncture for the remaining authors in this anthology, as the reader will unconsciously compare them to the big names. As such, I think I would have placed this as the last piece, where it would have rounded things out nicely.

Marion Pitman’s “Saxophony” is a moving, well-written story of music and the seasons. Like several of the other pieces in Subtle Edens, we get a touch of the mythic mingled with vague apprehension. Pitman only gives us enough information to pull us in, but not enough to flat out tell us what’s going on, which works nicely. A bit of gentle suspense is not a bad thing, especially with this kind of story. There’s a strong Charles de Lint vibe with “Saxophony,” which wasn’t at all unpleasant considering Pitman’s plot.

“My Copy of Robinson” by Daniel Bennett is what I think one of Jorge Luis Borges’s nightmares might have read like. Fact and fiction are blended into a panoply of obsession and madness. In Bennett’s writing, we get a sense of a London where reality is thin, where the city plays tricks on the unwary. He conveys both wonder and terror in equal measure, both of which fade into eventual resignation as the story comes to a close. The action is broken up by a faux discussion of history and fiction which, in the end, I saw not as a parallel theme, but the skeleton around which Bennett wraps his tale—which ends abruptly, but satisfactorily on a revelatory note that signals the protagonist’s arrival at his point of no return.

“Silent Emergent, Doubly Dark” by Richard Thieme opens with a quote from James Joyce, whom I consider to be a primogenitor of slipstream. Thieme, fortunately, doesn’t try to match Joyce for wordplay and instead gives us a calm, flat look into the psyche of an alien being. Thieme explores various levels of reality through his protagonist, moving farther and farther away from the seen, into unglimpsed realms. The story itself was a bit hard to get through (much like Joyce), but Thieme’s beautiful descriptions and intriguing concepts help to keep things interesting for the reader. This is another piece that I think truly deserves the slipstream label.

In “Gods’ Country,” A. B. Goelman gives us a story that could pass for straight fantasy were it not in a slipstream anthology. There’s a real western grit to this one, and it has a nice bite to it at the end. The premise is fascinating, and I wouldn’t mind reading a series of stories set in this alternate America. Goelman creates an enthralling world and peoples it with characters who simultaneously build upon American legend and tear it down.

Steve Rasnic Tem turns in his usual fine work with “Welcome to Rodeomart.” It’s a good blend of satire, humor, and disturbing imagery wrapped in a shiny, sci-fi package. Fast-paced and entertaining, it is also the story that feels the least like what slipstream should be. Perhaps the satire and the imagery of bouncing appliances is enough to warrant its inclusion, but it feels out of place amidst the other stories. Still, it has a fine concept driving it with just enough black humor to amuse without becoming bleak.

“The Upstairs Room” by Kate Robinson is a fine concept, a marriage of urban fantasy and conspiracy SF. Unfortunately, the story treads water, going nowhere of interest. Robinson sets up what would be a vastly entertaining tale, but it ends before anything of substance can happen. It reads like an excerpt of a longer work, and it is terribly frustrating to have it end as it does, with the status quo unaffected. Quite simply, there was no point to the story, which was disappointing because it has a brilliant setup.

In “Luxury Flats,” Josh McDonald offers us what appears, much like “Welcome to Rodeomart,” to be straightforward science fiction. McDonald uses the always interesting premise of changes to the brain leading to changes of consciousness, but instead of fully exploring the theme, he goes with a predictable story of mental slippage and madness—a setup the astute reader can see coming early on. This isn’t to say that “Luxury Flats” is a bad story. It’s entertaining as far as it goes, but it is relatively clichéd at this point. In an anthology like Subtle Edens, that’s unforgivable. If I’d read it anywhere else, I think I would have enjoyed it more. Like “Welcome to Rodeomart,” it doesn’t belong in this collection of stories.

Toiya Kristen Finley must be congratulated for her unique use of text placement in “Conspiracy Courts the Maiden.” The side-by-side, up-and-down setup, supported by gaps of empty space and tangled points of view, serves to illustrate the occurrence of simultaneous events beautifully. She takes a big chance, throwing out the rulebook in order to make something special, something truly slipstream. The problem is, it makes the reader work far too hard to read the story which, frankly, isn’t worth the effort. As a more standard piece, with fewer stylistic tricks, it would be fine. Finley’s writing is solid, but the story is a tad dull. Finley has sacrificed substance for style, and while I have to commend her for taking that chance, it made “Conspiracy Courts the Maiden” nearly unreadable, which is never a good thing, no matter how cool it looks.

With “Out of Time,” Gary Fry has given us a startlingly Lovecraftian story which is by turns engaging and terrifying. It is not a pastiche, but rather a welcome addition to the subgenre, taking the inherent themes to new levels. Fry’s characters are some of the best realized out of all the stories in this book, and what he puts them through is both entertaining and horrible. Again, as with several of the other pieces in Subtle Edens, I don’t see what’s particularly slipstream about “Out of Time” (unless Lovecraftian elements can be included in the definition of slipstream), but I’m willing to buy its inclusion on the strength of the climax, which is both startling and just plain weird.

Finally, we come to “Jasmine” by Andrew Tisbert. It’s a softly chilling take on the Faustian bargain. Obsession (a reoccurring theme for many of the stories in this anthology) and love are entangled here, much like in Nilla Allan’s “Darkroom.” Tisbert plays on our sympathies while simultaneously stroking our gag reflex. Is the narrator heroic? Pathetic? Both? Tisbert cagily leaves the answer up to us and ends the piece unflinchingly. In terms of the anthology as a whole, I would not have ended the book with “Jasmine.” Despite the emotional resonance, it’s not one of the stronger pieces (my vote for the strongest would have to go to “Darkroom”), and I think the anthology could have been better served by switching this story around with “Nomads of the Slipstream.”

Publisher: Elastic Press (Nov. 2008)
Price: £7.99
Trade paperback: 320 pages
ISBN: 095531819X