BTRs first book is an interesting collection of short stories that dont really fit any particular pattern or theme, although editor Witold Tietze has a game try at linking them together in his introduction.
The first and best of the stories (by a nose) is Darran Jordans The Glass Menagerie, purportedly the latest lunatic escapade of a comic book adventurer called Red Satin. Partially resembling Michael Moorcocks Jerry Cornelius, he travels through a perverse galaxy, meeting and fighting exotic criminals whilst searching for a very special fish. Theres plenty of funny lines, artful pastiches of pulp fiction and vivid imagery. The only annoyances are the completely unnecessary bookends involving two surreal aliens. These just seem to be added for weirdness sake and dont really enhance or deepen the central story at all. In fact with a little rewriting they could have been added to any of the stories in this collection. However the whole story has been written with a lot assurance and succeeds far better than his earlier BTR entry Shards of a Forgotten Tomorrow. Jordans comic book writing background can certainly be detected in this rich enjoyable piece.
Business is Business by Matthew Kopelke is a sequel to the BTR audio Ice and reveals what happened to its four protagonists. Trent Greene has been kidnapped into the future and forced to work on his greatest invention. But now he realises his usefulness has come to an end. Although all the details are covered for people who havent heard the first part, its hard to think of this story as much more than a coda. The central character of Trent is completely bland and if he hadnt been kidnapped into the future, he would have had no distinctive qualities to describe at all. More info on what his invention the Pincher did and why it was so revolutionary might have added to the tension or given the events some weight. As it is, the story seemed to be over almost before it had begun.
Houses of the Holy by Madeline Lang is a strange story of two halves. The first, much weaker, part involves a jewel heist going spectacularly wrong and turning into a bloodbath. I kept wondering why the criminals were talking to each other in such an awkward, formal way and expected this to be a clue but in the end it was not. For example, We were obviously screwed with in a pretty extreme way this morning. Now I know you want us to get on with sticking closely to the plan and Im sure the other couldnt agree more with your reasons. I think it is because I come from a scriptwriting background and so I spend a lot of time worrying about believable appropriate dialogue. Too often the speech matched the slightly affected tone of the description. However once the action moves to the church, the story and writing sudden vaults into another league. Father Collins is the guardian of a church with an extraordinary secret and the surviving criminals have made a very poor choice in hiding out there. The confession is excellently depicted, the location well evoked and final grim understanding by the priest about his status and the dangerous nature of his unseen companions is a subtle, clever conclusion that only really work in prose. It leaves the reader with all sorts on intriguing questions. So it is a story worth sticking with through the faux gangster section.
A wealthy man hires ruthless Japanese criminals to steal a prototype time machine, but fails to reckon on the rough justice of the fourth dimension. As with his audio episode, Peter Grehen delivers a succinct, twist in the tale SF short in All Future Plunges It builds up the tension expertly, the characters are well drawn and the story is driven by a simple, scary idea. A very satisfying Twilight Zone-esque tale.
Haldemars Brain by Witold Tietze is the prologue to another audio episode, The Six Million Dollar Brain. In its own right it essentially a character sketch of Matteus Brunner, a self-important criminal who plans to steal the worlds first positronic brain. Knowing Witolds fondness for verbosity, I was pleasantly surprised by the straightforwardness of the writing. Its an amusing except from a larger story.
This is an entertaining companion to the audio version of Beyond Traditional Recognition and could work as an annual or bi-annual release. BTR should be praised for creating an outlet for original work in a market crowded with spin-offs.
Gaz
The first and best of the stories (by a nose) is Darran Jordans The Glass Menagerie, purportedly the latest lunatic escapade of a comic book adventurer called Red Satin. Partially resembling Michael Moorcocks Jerry Cornelius, he travels through a perverse galaxy, meeting and fighting exotic criminals whilst searching for a very special fish. Theres plenty of funny lines, artful pastiches of pulp fiction and vivid imagery. The only annoyances are the completely unnecessary bookends involving two surreal aliens. These just seem to be added for weirdness sake and dont really enhance or deepen the central story at all. In fact with a little rewriting they could have been added to any of the stories in this collection. However the whole story has been written with a lot assurance and succeeds far better than his earlier BTR entry Shards of a Forgotten Tomorrow. Jordans comic book writing background can certainly be detected in this rich enjoyable piece.
Business is Business by Matthew Kopelke is a sequel to the BTR audio Ice and reveals what happened to its four protagonists. Trent Greene has been kidnapped into the future and forced to work on his greatest invention. But now he realises his usefulness has come to an end. Although all the details are covered for people who havent heard the first part, its hard to think of this story as much more than a coda. The central character of Trent is completely bland and if he hadnt been kidnapped into the future, he would have had no distinctive qualities to describe at all. More info on what his invention the Pincher did and why it was so revolutionary might have added to the tension or given the events some weight. As it is, the story seemed to be over almost before it had begun.
Houses of the Holy by Madeline Lang is a strange story of two halves. The first, much weaker, part involves a jewel heist going spectacularly wrong and turning into a bloodbath. I kept wondering why the criminals were talking to each other in such an awkward, formal way and expected this to be a clue but in the end it was not. For example, We were obviously screwed with in a pretty extreme way this morning. Now I know you want us to get on with sticking closely to the plan and Im sure the other couldnt agree more with your reasons. I think it is because I come from a scriptwriting background and so I spend a lot of time worrying about believable appropriate dialogue. Too often the speech matched the slightly affected tone of the description. However once the action moves to the church, the story and writing sudden vaults into another league. Father Collins is the guardian of a church with an extraordinary secret and the surviving criminals have made a very poor choice in hiding out there. The confession is excellently depicted, the location well evoked and final grim understanding by the priest about his status and the dangerous nature of his unseen companions is a subtle, clever conclusion that only really work in prose. It leaves the reader with all sorts on intriguing questions. So it is a story worth sticking with through the faux gangster section.
A wealthy man hires ruthless Japanese criminals to steal a prototype time machine, but fails to reckon on the rough justice of the fourth dimension. As with his audio episode, Peter Grehen delivers a succinct, twist in the tale SF short in All Future Plunges It builds up the tension expertly, the characters are well drawn and the story is driven by a simple, scary idea. A very satisfying Twilight Zone-esque tale.
Haldemars Brain by Witold Tietze is the prologue to another audio episode, The Six Million Dollar Brain. In its own right it essentially a character sketch of Matteus Brunner, a self-important criminal who plans to steal the worlds first positronic brain. Knowing Witolds fondness for verbosity, I was pleasantly surprised by the straightforwardness of the writing. Its an amusing except from a larger story.
This is an entertaining companion to the audio version of Beyond Traditional Recognition and could work as an annual or bi-annual release. BTR should be praised for creating an outlet for original work in a market crowded with spin-offs.
Gaz
New fantasy audio available from: http://zap.to/fineline
