SFF Chronicles News
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2013
- Messages
- 1,458
31st August 2013 07:19 PM
Michelle Horst
Have you ever
wondered where that massive, ornate wardrobe leads to?* You know the one. It’s at the back of the vintage shop. I know you wanted to kick out the mothballs and inspect the back, just to be sure you weren’t about to miss your one and only chance to find Narnia. Or are you the one that explores the hollow tree, wondering if there are doors at the bottom? Will you find Alice, or giant dogs?
Hic Dragones are based in Manchester and call themselves a micro-press. I think that’s doing both them and their selected authors an injustice. They have been bubbling away for a few years now, quietly selecting stories on the sly, and if Impossible Spaces is anything to go by, picking out some of the best for themselves. Be it a twist on the ‘stick some cogs on it’ steampunk or ‘mess with your head’ horror, crime or science, it’s all crammed into Impossible Spaces. I’d like to say there is something for every reader, but speculative fiction is so wide as a genre there might be one or two areas that have slipped through.
I know that the trend for reviewing anthologies is to break each story down or to pick out the better ones, but to do that would be to insult the others. You need to read it for yourself. There are some great authors here, each and every story deserves its printing ink. I have my favourites, and you’ll have your own. What you won’t find is the Disneyfied version of Alice, or a too-preachy talking lion. It’s not for kids but perfect for adults.
The short stories fit in to my kid-manic, toy-strewn world neatly. The first test of a good story is “can I read it?” Yes, I know we all filter through our books that way, but my “can I read it?” should be interpreted as. “Am I able to read this while the kids are playing pirates with their Barbie dolls?”
If the opening lines can wade in over that noise, I know I am on to something good.
The authors of Impossible Spaces smothered reality down to a muffled mumbling, transporting me through graveyards, council estates, Fablesque towns and on foggy drives. Not only was each story long enough to fit between Barbie being abducted by Playmobil pirates, but they left questions lingering long after the reading was done.
For me, that’s story telling.
My one grumble, – yes, one – is that I feel all these stories with their ethereal sense and the curiosity explored within the pages of Impossible Spaces, deserved a better front cover.
Like I said, teeny, tiny minor niggle, never judge a book by its cover.
Impossible Spaces is available as both paperback and ebook.
Authors contributing:
Ramsey Campbell, Simon Bestwick, Hannah Kate, Jeanette Greaves, Richard Freeman, Almira Holmes, Arpa Mukhopadhyay, Chris Galvin Nguyen, Christos Callow Jr., Daisy Black, Douglas Thompson, Jessica George, Keris McDonald, Laura Brown, Maree Kimberley, Margrét Helgadóttir, Nancy Schumann, Rachel Yelding, Steven K. Beattie, Tej Turner and Tracy Fahey.
Edited by Hannah Kate.
Michelle Horst
Have you ever
wondered where that massive, ornate wardrobe leads to?* You know the one. It’s at the back of the vintage shop. I know you wanted to kick out the mothballs and inspect the back, just to be sure you weren’t about to miss your one and only chance to find Narnia. Or are you the one that explores the hollow tree, wondering if there are doors at the bottom? Will you find Alice, or giant dogs?Hic Dragones are based in Manchester and call themselves a micro-press. I think that’s doing both them and their selected authors an injustice. They have been bubbling away for a few years now, quietly selecting stories on the sly, and if Impossible Spaces is anything to go by, picking out some of the best for themselves. Be it a twist on the ‘stick some cogs on it’ steampunk or ‘mess with your head’ horror, crime or science, it’s all crammed into Impossible Spaces. I’d like to say there is something for every reader, but speculative fiction is so wide as a genre there might be one or two areas that have slipped through.
I know that the trend for reviewing anthologies is to break each story down or to pick out the better ones, but to do that would be to insult the others. You need to read it for yourself. There are some great authors here, each and every story deserves its printing ink. I have my favourites, and you’ll have your own. What you won’t find is the Disneyfied version of Alice, or a too-preachy talking lion. It’s not for kids but perfect for adults.
The short stories fit in to my kid-manic, toy-strewn world neatly. The first test of a good story is “can I read it?” Yes, I know we all filter through our books that way, but my “can I read it?” should be interpreted as. “Am I able to read this while the kids are playing pirates with their Barbie dolls?”
If the opening lines can wade in over that noise, I know I am on to something good.
The authors of Impossible Spaces smothered reality down to a muffled mumbling, transporting me through graveyards, council estates, Fablesque towns and on foggy drives. Not only was each story long enough to fit between Barbie being abducted by Playmobil pirates, but they left questions lingering long after the reading was done.
For me, that’s story telling.
My one grumble, – yes, one – is that I feel all these stories with their ethereal sense and the curiosity explored within the pages of Impossible Spaces, deserved a better front cover.
Like I said, teeny, tiny minor niggle, never judge a book by its cover.
Impossible Spaces is available as both paperback and ebook.
Authors contributing:
Ramsey Campbell, Simon Bestwick, Hannah Kate, Jeanette Greaves, Richard Freeman, Almira Holmes, Arpa Mukhopadhyay, Chris Galvin Nguyen, Christos Callow Jr., Daisy Black, Douglas Thompson, Jessica George, Keris McDonald, Laura Brown, Maree Kimberley, Margrét Helgadóttir, Nancy Schumann, Rachel Yelding, Steven K. Beattie, Tej Turner and Tracy Fahey.
Edited by Hannah Kate.
