Previous: G's

Back to: Short Stories

Next: I's

The Haunted Bookshop [10]

The Haunted Nursery [1]

Review by Trent Walters

An Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman were drinking at a... No, it's not exactly a joke set-up.

One by one, they visit the haunted nursery where they re-experience the horrors of their youths - except for the Irishman, who strikes another bargain...

Heartbeat [1]

Review by Trent Walters

Heartbeat is an incredibly moving short short:

A man discovers his heart has stopped beating, so he estranges himself from everyone to prevent their knowing.

Heartbreaker [5]

Hidden Agendas [16]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Cade Carlyle Maclaine Jnr is rudley awakened when Alexander Chesterton from the Scientific Civil Service calls to inform him that Cade Carlyle Maclaine Snr is on his deathbed. Maclaine Jnr is Maclaine Snr's eponymous clone and Maclaine Snr used to work on plague viruses; so the civil servant warns Maclaine Jnr that if Snr passes on any secrets, he'd better not keep them to himself.

The Maclaine clan gather in bonny Scotland to hear Maclaine Snr's last public announcement, but the old man still has a card or two up his sleeve.

The Highway Code [7]

The Holocaust of Ecstasy [6]

The Home Front

Review by Andrew Breitenbach

The Home Front is about a man working from home during the first Plague War, and how he and his family (consisting of one highly allergenic daughter, one normalish one, and his wife) live through it.

The narrator/protagonist invests heavily into plantigen manufacturers and developers (plantigens being a foodstuff (usually a potato) that when eaten unleashes a flood of antigens into the body), using both his own money and his clients'.

The story skips back and forth from what is happening in the market and why, to what is happening in his family and why.

The whole story can be read as a very nasty parable about the Internet boom and crash (this of course, could just be because this reviewer is a survivor of said, and so perhaps is quick to attach associations), as well as the psychology of markets in general (references to the tulip craze in Holland in the 1600s abound), and maybe even the "great" Irish potato famines. The only real problem with the story is the ending, which I felt went out with a whimper instead of a walloping bang like it could have.

In all, worth reading, but not a classic. On a side note, it's interesting that The Home Front is a "future biotech history" story instead of something set in any of the milieus from Stableford's books from DAW. His stories for previous DAW anthologies were.

Hot Blood [6]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Brian has a lot of fun with this one; there are plenty of laughs and double entendres to be found.

It follows the fortunes of Jeff, a pig farmer - or pharmer in this case - as he rides the fickle tides of commercial fortune and gets involved in illicit blood products to help keep the wolf from the door… Until the wolf turns up for his cut, of course.

The House of Mourning [6]

Review by Ian Braidwood

As the title suggests, this is quite solemn. It concerns Anna, an ex-prostitute who has had herself augmented genetically, so that the epithelial cells of her vagina secrete a psychoactive agent during intercourse.

As in real life, things are rarely straightforward with both Anna and her clients adversely affected by her secretions.

The story begins with Anna leaving hospital - where she is a voluntary patient - to attend the funeral of one of her clients.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of prostitution: whether you regard the person providing the service or the client as the sinner, or even if there is for you no wrongdoer; Brian remains resolutely neutral and that is quite right, because that isn't what this story is about. It is too good to allow personal agendas to get in the way, so don't do that to yourself.

How the DragonsYetzirah and Alziluth Lost the Knowledge of a Million Lifetimes [v]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Yetzirah and Alziluth are not immortal, but have a reproductive system, which renders them dependant upon one another.

One day they argue...

The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires [35]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Once again, we find Brian dealing with vampires and once again he has added a new twist, lending new vigour to an old idea.

The story is set in and was published by Interzone to celebrate the centenary of 1895, the year that saw the publication of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. Indeed, Wells features alongside Nikola Tesla, Oscar Wilde and other 'narrative devices', who share names with famous historical figures.

As well as 'narrative devices', which Brian has named himself, the story features 'narrative devices', which share the names of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson; who in no way resemble the 'narrative devices' invented by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, even if one of them is a detective.

In the story, the characters are assembled in the home of Sir Edward Copplestone, who has used his extensive knowledge of shamanistic tribal drugs to produce a more potent formula to enhance possible precognitive affects. Copplestone then retells two of his experiences had, while under the influence of the drug, but then falls ill.

The following evening, the group reforms, only to find that Copplestone has died during the night, so Dr Watson reads out the third instalment from the professor's notes.

As with The Empire of Fear, Brian evokes the feel of antiquity very deftly, without labouring the point like Gibson and Stirling did in The Difference Engine. He introduces details carefully, so that you're not even sure that the white bearded 'narrative device' with the East European accent is Nikola Tesla until some way into the story.

The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires was subsequently expanded into the novel of the same name.