#110. THE CALTRAPS OF TIME By David I Masson

Published : 1968 & 2003
Pages : 204
Overall Mark : 7/10

This collection is David I Masson’s only published book of fiction. Most of the stories here made their first appearance in New Worlds SF during the 1960s under the legendary editorship of Michael Moorcock. An apocalyptic battle at the edge of the unknown, the deadly fascination of voracious magma, a world where the weather expresses itself as mood. These are only some of the themes tackled with superb scientific speculation by one of British SF’s truly original voices.

DAVID I MASSON (1915-2007)
David Irvine Masson was born in Edinburgh from a distinguished family of academics and thinkers. Although his output was small and consisted of short stories, he gained a reputation as a writer of vigorous experimental SF. All of his short science fiction is published in the collection The Caltraps Of Time. He died in Leeds in 2007.

VERDICT
It's not easy to come to an overall conclusion when it comes to a book of short stories. Most of these stories are based on wordplay, as Masson was a huge proponent of languages, and as such some of them can be hard to get into, but the ideas are interesting and work best in short story form as a longer version of these stories could have been pretty tedious.

#109. UNQUENCHABLE FIRE By Rachel Pollack

Published : 1988
Pages : 364
Overall Mark : 9/10

In an America where the miraculous is par for the course, where magic and myths are as real as shopping malls and television game shows, Jennifer Mazdan listens to the modern storytellers recite the tales of the Founders.

But when strange things start to happen and Jennie becomes pregnant – from a dream – she enters a struggle which threatens her own life and causes her to question everything she has ever learned.

RACHEL POLLACK (1945-)
Rachel Pollack was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1945. She is well known as a science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot. She has been a great influence on the women’s spirituality movement and on women’s SF. Her novel Unquenchable Fire won the Arthur C Clarke Award in 1989. Rachel Pollack lives in New York.

VERDICT
This is a rare sci-fi novel that treats religion not as an oppressive force but as something that people accept in their everyday lives, even though the occurences are so unusual. Pollack manages to create a character who is very real, and even though her cirumstances are unusual you can really imagine what she would be like if you met her, and how she might react to other events, not just an apparent virgin birth.

#108. DOOMSDAY BOOK By Connie Willis

Published : 1992
Pages : 587
Overall Mark : 9/10

When Kivrin Engle travels back through time to complete her doctoral thesis, due to an accident, she lands in the middle of the Black Plague of 1348.

Meanwhile the Oxford she left behind is laid low by a mysterious strain of influenza and, with no-one willing to risk arranging her rescue, time is running out…

CONNIE WILLIS (1945-)
Connie Willis has won, among other prizes, ten HUGO Awards and six NEBULA Awards for her writing. She lives in Greeley, Colorado with her husband Courtney Willis, a professor of physics at the University of Northern Colorado.

VERDICT
This is a well written and well rounded tale that creates two worlds and a collection of characters who are both likeable and believable. Willis manages to bring us a story of medieval England that gives us characters who, rather than being the stereotypically evil people we would normally associate with the period, are so real that it becomes quite depressing when the plague inevitably ctaches up with them. This is one of the best SF Masterworks I've read in a good while.

#107. RIDDLEY WALKER By Russell Hoban

Published : 1974
Pages : 215
Overall Mark : 7/10

“Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever they’ve took me and walking them now on this paper the same. There aint that many sir prizes in life if you take noatis of every thing. Every time will have its happenings out and every place the same.”

Riddley Walker – orphaned, outcast and alone – journeys through a post-apocalyptic England, telling his tale in language which reflects the decayed world around him.

RUSSELL HOBAN (1925-2011)
Russell Hoban was born in America but found his true home in London, where he lived for 42 years of his life. Author of highly acclaimed literary fiction, children’s books, genre fiction and non-fiction, he defied all categorisation.

VERDICT
This book is incredibly hard to get a grasp on, especially for anyone whose first language isn't English. The various nuances that pepper this tale make it difficult to follow and even more difficult to enjoy, but if you are able to see passed the initial difficulty of this book it is actually a pretty interesting tale.

#106. THE CONTINUOUS KATHERINE MORTENHOE By D G Compton

Published : 1974
Pages : 239
Overall Mark : 7/10

A few years in the future, medical science has advanced to the point where it is practically unheard of for people to die of any cause except old age. The few exceptions provide the fodder for a new kind of television show for avid audiences who lap up the experience of watching someone else’s dying weeks. So when Katherine Mortenhoe is told she has about four weeks to live she knows it’s not just her life she’s about to lose, but her privacy as well.

D G COMPTON (1930-)
David Guy Compton was born in London in 1930. He is a British science fiction author who publishes SF under the name D G Compton. His earlier crime novels were published under ‘Guy Compton’, and his Gothic novels under ‘Frances Lynch’. He is best known for The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, a classic of British SF that exposed the pitfalls of voyeuristic entertainment decades before the likes of ‘The Truman Show’.

VERDICT
This is an interesting look at how society has sadly become over the years, with a true fascination with celebrity and the unusual, a concept which has been used in such movies as The Truman Show and edTV. With this novels focus on a world where death is not common place, the illness of a seemingly ordinary member of society can quickly turn their lives into a living hell. The fact that the woman in this book may not in fact have the illness she has been told she has just adds to the overall pathos of the piece.

#105. FRANKENSTEIN By Mary Shelley

Published : 1818
Pages : 196
Overall Mark : 8/10

Brilliant, driven Victor Frankenstein has at last realised his greatest ambition. The scientist has succeeded in creating intelligent life. But when his creature first stirs, Frankenstein realises he has made a monster. And, abandoned by its maker and shunned by everyone who sees it, the Doctor’s creation sets out to destroy him and all that he holds dear.

MARY SHELLEY (1797-1851)
Daughter of radical writers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. A novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, she also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, She was just nineteen years old when she wrote what many critics argue is the first true science fiction novel, Frankenstein.

VERDICT
This classic gothic horror is a classic for a reason. It has a timeless appeal and an unusually modern feel to its writing that is sadly absent in many of its contemporaries. Though nothing like the movie adaptations from over the years, with the book having an intelligent monster that is simply feared by society for his looks and not his actions, this is an enjoyable look at how people judge by looks alone and don't think about the good or bad nature of the person inside, with the doctor being the true monster of this book.

#104. AMMONITE By Nicola Griffith

Published : 1992
Pages : 400
Overall Mark : 7/10

Change or die. These are the only options on the planet Jeep. Centuries ago, a deadly virus shattered the colony, killing the men and forever altering the surviving women. Now anthropologist Marghe Taishan arrives to test a new vaccine. As she risks death to uncover the women’s biological secret, she finds that she, too, is changing – and that not only has she found a home on Jeep, but that she alone carries the seeds of its destruction…

NICOLA GRIFFITH (1960-)
Nicola Griffith was born in Yorkshire and currently lives in Seattle. An alumnus of the Michigan State University Clarion science fiction writing workshop, she has won the Nebula, James Tiptree, Jr and World Fantasy Awards.

VERDICT
This is an interesting look at what a world without men might be like, and how those that survive cope with the drastic changes to their lifestyles. The characters aren't the most gripping I've ever read about, but the idea is an intriguing one that is explored to full affect by Griffith.