his debut volume from one of England's newer young writers contains over 20 stories, the majority of which appeared in the United Kingdom's premier SF magazine, Interzone. These speculative tales, all published between 1991 and the present (with one tale original to this volume), include the occasional crime and mimetic piece. Standouts among the generally splendid offerings include the following.
The title story takes us several centuries into the future, where reluctant chrononaut Alan first embarks on a romantic quest to meet the woman of his dreams, glimpsed in an antique photo. But the web of paradoxes he engenders makes both his life and hers a complete, pathetic mess. In a similar but even more complex vein is "Women on the Brink of a Cataclysm," wherein a sculptor named Joanna Krenski manages to turn her secure life into a disaster zone for herself and all her parallel-universe incarnations.
A trio of stories--"Return of the Princess," "Rules of Engagement" and "Ruella in Love"—deconstruct the life of the stereotypical fairytale princess for a goodly number of laughs. On the opposite end of the spectrum, cyberpunkish explorations such as "Community Service" (future cops engineered for perfection) and "No Better than Anyone Else" (slashers loose in a diseased city) capture dystopic visions elegantly.
Brown turns out suitably nasty horror stories as well. "Feeding Julie" concerns a kidnapped child in a near-future setting. Vampire as author? That's the theme of "Agents of Darkness." An elderly Chinese woman who happens to harbor the soul of her demon husband inside her wreaks retribution for her grandson's misfortunes in "The Vengeance of Grandmother Wu." A malevolent mirror traps a woman in a Twilight Zone existence in "The Psychomantium." "Choosing the Incubus" chronicles the tug of war between a mortal boyfriend and a supernatural lover for the heart and body of Coral Baker. Is Carrie a middle-aged wife and mother, or a perpetual 17-year-old? The answer lies in "Asleep at the Wheel."
Finally, some stories remain defiantly uncategorizable: "Doing Things Differently" presents the sad fate of the lone mind on a grounded generation ship, while "Learning to Fly" reworks the famous philosophical conundrum of philosopher dreaming of a butterfly/butterfly dreaming of a philosopher.
A major SF career in the making
Big Engine, a spanking-new publishing venture founded by author Ben Jeapes, earns major credit for delivering this seminal collection, showcasing one of the fresh voices which SF needs if it's to thrive in a new millennium. Given this springboard, Molly Brown surely is ready to launch a major career. That is, if she possesses the necessary persistence and is granted some breaks. For the recent book which this volume is most reminiscent of came from an author who has since fallen cautionarily silent.
Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities appeared in 1996 from writer Mary Rosenblum. As with Brown's book, this collection gathered strong stories from the dawn of the author's heralded career (in this case, 1991-1995). Reviewing that volume at the time, I mentioned that Rosenblum exhibited an astonishing facility with all of the major tropes, themes and constructs of modern SF. She seemed to represent a voracious new generation that had internalized all the sometimes conflicting modes of the past, and could generate stories in any form at will.
Well, Molly Brown shows the exact same facility and generational sensibilities. One gets the feeling, reading her, that she could turn out upon request anything from a Joanna Russ feminist parable ("Choosing the Incubus" comes close) to Vollmannesque sleaze-beat reportage ("Angel's Day," about a young prostitute). The Van-Vogtian/Laumeresque stylings of her time-travel stories are employed perfectly, then dropped for Phildickian mind-games ("Learning to Fly" and "Asleep at the Wheel"). Even wisps of Barry Malzberg surface in the hapless flounderings of the protagonist and the ineffable aliens of "Doing Things Differently."
But this very flexibility and chameleon adaptability have in the past proven the bane of such talented figures as Richard Lupoff. The broad audience seems to favor a William Gibson or a Ken MacLeod, who does one thing perfectly and one thing only. Nonetheless, such versatility and boldness are engaging and diverting, and need to be encouraged. Anyone purchasing this superlative collection will find that Molly Brown is a writer big enough to contain multitudes.
