STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Sci-fi reviews with MAT COWARD: June 11, 2024
Steampunk Victoriana, time travel and Martian nativism
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
HIGH VAULTAGE by Chris and Jen Sugden (Gollancz, £22) is set in a steampunk version of 1887, where the Victorian mania for innovation has got somewhat out of control. London covers the whole of southern England, and is so dynamic that seeing an overview of it triggers a recognised medical condition. Queen Victoria herself is a monstrous figure, having been rebuilt after every successful assassination.
Another beneficiary of revitalisation is Archibald Fleet of Scotland Yard. Sadly, the paperwork doesn’t yet exist to deal with an officer who has been dead but isn’t any more. While he waits for the authorities to reinstate him, he runs the capital’s first ever private investigation agency with Clara, a young lady of high breeding and boundless pluck who yearns for a life of adventure.
Science fiction comedy is a very tricky thing to pull off, but this is constantly funny and inventive, and at times hilarious.
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