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Sad Story [2]

Sailing into Night [1]

A Saint's Progress [7]

Salomé [4]

Review by Ian Braidwood

I had high expectations of this one. After all, Salome is one of the world's most notorious femme fetales, so you'd expect a certain sexual frisson. (I'm working here, gentle reader, on the assumption that sexual stimulation is permissible, as long as it is not exploitative.)

As you'd imagine, the story is set at the time of John the Baptist, though here he's called John the Prophet; a warning that - like The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires - this story features 'narrative devices' who just happen to share the names of people featured in other writing.

Salome was born with a talent for dancing, which inflames he father so much that tongues are cut out to safeguard her magical secret. Herod allows Salome to dance only for him and a select few, and in his fascination, Herod neglects his wife.

As she develops, Salome's power grows and Herod's fascination is only matched by Herodias' jealousy…

Unfortunately, this story doesn't succeed. There's no hint of the exoticism, which always adds excitement to sexual fantasies and Herod's political strategy seems almost contemporary.

Although Salome's gyrations are described as snakelike, there's little sense of tantalisation, because the girl is too remote from both the characters in the story and its readership.

Disappointing, I'm afraid.

The Scream [8]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Brian hasn't written too many telepathy tales. Probably because 'the direct connection of two nervous systems separated by time and space' is just a bit too much to swallow. We simply don't have the hardware to either send, receive or interpret the nerve impulses we'd swapped.

So how does Brian get around this insurmountable obstacle and write this story, you ask? Not telling, sorry. I do have a nondisclosure policy to uphold, but you know that in a story with this title, everything is not going to be hunky dory, don't you?

Paul Scrivener plays a genetic scientist (Oh, oh! Better be careful I don't spill the beans…) and mean chess player, who lives quietly in the countryside.

One evening, while lining up the local sheriff for defeat, the air is rent by a dreadful scream and Scrivener knows his past has returned to haunt him…

Second Chance [4]

Review by Ian Braidwood

After a nuclear holocaust has wiped out humanity, God decides to remake Eden. He re - introduces Adam and Eve, but this time round grants the primordial couple the sum of human wisdom, hoping things will go better.

This is called asking for it.

The Secret Exhibition [12]

Security [1]

Review by Ian Braidwood

This story could well be the first thing of Brian's that I ever read. I remember buying The Weekend Book of Science Fiction whilst on holiday with my parents. It's also the earliest humorous story of Brian's that I know of.

Hatherley visits the Department of Social Security in the hope of getting his AI program - Max - a social security number, because he figures that with one it would be easier to get him legal recognition and protection against being switched off.

Short and sweet.

The Seeds from the Mountains of Madness [21]

Seers [4]

Self-Sacrifice [5]

Review by Ian Braidwood

This is another of Brian's stories which explores the edge of sexual mores and questionable morality. It really is an open question whether its protagonist will inspire sympathy, disgust or both.

Self-Sacrifice begins with our 'hero' searching for a whore, but not just any whore; she must be the right age and appearance for his little ritual. Finally, he finds a young girl long past naiveté, a drug addict who sells her body to finance her habit.

The narrator of this story is a molecular biologist, whose daughter died some years before and for whom he felt unconsummated sexual desire.

Part of his ritual is to slake this unnatural desire, part to confess his sins and the sins of his colleagues in their part in trying to save the world.

Easily the best of the three Femmes Fetales stories.

The Serpent [6]

Review by Ian Braidwood

A harrowing story, which starts when a man who comes home from work and finds that his wife has tried to kill their unborn baby. Haunted by self-accusation and fearful of official meddling, he tries to coax an explanation from his wife.

To say more about this would spoil it, so I'll stop here.

Sexual Chemistry [7]

Review by Ian Braidwood

This tale follows the life of Giovanni Casanova, the nerdy son of an Italian immigrant and a nice working class mum.

Unable to attract the girls at school, Giovanni takes refuge in scientific study and becomes a bit of a prodigy; going on to university and eventually joining the research department of Cytotech Inc: a Californian biotech company, who set him to work on an aphrodisiac.

The potion is an astounding success, but the young scientist is troubled by his sudden ability with women and his failure to fulfil them sexually, so he starts work on a stimulant to improve his performance.

When these two developments plunge Cytotech and Giovanni into trouble, he has to return to his lab to find a solution.

This is another of Brian's wise and witty short stories, which takes an old theme - the love potion - and reworks it in the light of both modern sensibilities and knowledge.

Shadows of the Past [12]

Sheena [25]

The Shepherd's Daughter [2]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Magnus lives high in the mountains with his beloved daughter, Hilda. When the kingdom is devasted by a disease, he hopes like the other mountain folk, that the relative sparsness of the popuation will protect him and Hilda from illness.

When Hilda is struck down, Magnus beseeches God and the angels to help him. When no help is forthcoming, he curses them and in desperation, turns to the host of Hell. He curses them too for their indifference, but they are not forgiving like the angels and visit a terrible vengance upon him.

Shores of a Shattered Cosmic Sea [poem]

The Singer of Dreams [2]

Skin Deep [8]

Review by Ian Braidwood

The story of Roy Orchisson, a cosmetic surgeon, who becomes infatuated with Helena Wyngard: doyen of man-eaters and ultimate surgical challenge, who is famous for leaving men's careers in tatters.

Melissa Sai had seen it all before, in fact she'd seen two or three of her protégés become entranced before doing a dying swan act and she was determined it wasn't going to happen to Roy.

With dispiriting predictability, Roy falls for Helena's charms and ends up doing the ultimate face-job on her. Then Helena announces that she wants to leave Roy and he replies that he used special DNA when he operated. If he's not around her face will fall to pieces.

Things then get a bit awkward for Helena when Roy is killed in a freak accident...

Skinned Alive [2]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Professor Birnam is desperately trying to stifle his embarrassment at his arousal by the presence of a young journalist. Jennifer is beginning to wish that when she came to interview the man who makes fur coats grow on trees, she'd worn a longer skirt. Both of them have more to worry about than they think.

Now for your morning exercises: Place tongue firmly in cheek...

The Skin Trade [6]

Review by Ian Braidwood

An amusing tale of love at first sight - or perhaps I should say, scent. Ritchie Halliday's tailor tells of his choosiest customer and his penchant for changing his clothes.

Not that we're talking threads here, but skins. Genetically engineered skins, which envelop you, cosset you and live off the waste products excreted through your skin - the one you were born with, that is.

Exactly why there should be an unlikely attraction between an interplaneary waldo operator and someone who works for a local 3V studio? That would be telling, wouldn't it?

The Sleeping Soul [v]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Xhoris Alaquel has bestowed a favour upon Larissa, no one knows why.

Sleepwalker [1]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Not a lot can be said about this one without giving too much away.

An unnamed man agrees to have part of his brain temporarily disabled so that researchers can study the nature of human dreaming.

Usually, the importance of dreams is played up, if not by mystics then by pshychologists. It's interesting to read a story where knowing your dreams might be considered a nuisance.

Slumming in Voodooland [7]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Benny and his friends like to go zooming - that's his word for it - driving out into the night seeking thrills. They come from an America where much of the populace has retreated into fortified towns, which people only leave in armoured cars.

Together, the four of them set off to find Papa Ogo and see his Zombie show. They're herded into an old drive-in and begin to suspect it's all a sham; until the show begins and real corpses shamble across the makeshift stage.

This is a sort of rites-of-passage tale, but not everyone makes it through...

Snowball in Hell [12]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Stephen Hutchens is a scientific advisor to the Home Office, which isn't a very exciting job; so when he gets the chance to assist Special Branch when they raid and illegal laboratory, he jumps at it. The raid begins and in his enthusiasm, Stephen runs way too fast and is overcome by smoke when the scientists burn the laboratory to the ground.

Hutchens wakes up in a dark cellar with a young woman and so begins an examination into what makes a human human.

This is a must-have story, when you see it, buy it.

Some Like it Hot [12]

Sortilege and Serendipity [12]

Review by Ian Braidwood

The second story featuring Simon Sweetland and Carol Cloxeter, finds them involved with Interpol after returning from a symposium on paranormality in Paris.

This time a young boy, who can pinpoint the location of anyone who used a particular telephone, is in demand; because someone has stolen rather a lot of money...

The Storyteller's Tale [3]

Review by Ian Braidwood

If you go down to the waste today,
You're in for a big surprise.

If you go down to the waste today,
You'll never believe your eyes.

The Withering Waste is no place to haste
The ghouls living there want you for a taste.

Whatever you do,
go somewhere else on your picnic.

Story with a Happy Ending [2]

The Sun's Tears [5]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Set in the same universe as An Offer of Oblivion and sharing the Starman's Quest as a theme, this is somewhat better.

It involves a man called Colfax, who becomes infatuated with a woman called Siorane.

Owned by her father and seeing what a heartless man Colfax is, Siorane determines to influence her father's asking price; working on the assumption that if Colfax has to pay a lot for her, at least he'll appreciate her. So the price is set: one sun's tear - a shining gem of incredible value.

Unknowing, Colfax sets off to find one of the jewels and manages to get one. However, he finds the process of acquiring the gem leaves him cold for Siorane.