Paul Fraser

Snow in the desert - Neal Asher

Snow is an albino with a missing hand and a genetic secret. Sex is one way of extracting his dna but bounty hunters and local law enforcement are also after him (or rather certain organs). He is sprung from captivity by an enigmatic woman, who flees with him into a waterless desert...Lots of dead bodies ensue and there is a neat resolution.

The trees of Terpsichore Three - Michael Coney

Terpsichore Three is a newly discovered planet. It is being routinely investigated for intelligent life, until the leader of the Biology Team doing the work is murdered. The normal school of red herrings is used, but the star witness turns out to be alien trees...

Tall tales on the iron horse - Colin P. Davies

The narrator appears to be on a very odd train journey, starting on Earth but heading to Titan. A strange woman engages him in pointless dialogue, seemingingly trying to keep him awake. In another story strand, the narrator is looking for Mary, who has joined a cult which enables devotees to leave the world behind...

A night at the movies - Josh Lacey

In some sort of post-collapse future world, people rarely travel. One old-technology enthusiast loves screening old films in a shed re-fitted as a cinema. His latest invitation to a screening is a flop so he innovates successfully. An attempted story twist at the end though falls flat.

The Atrocity Archives - Charles Stross

Part two of three: Perhaps the most audacious piece of science fiction/fantasy ever, on one hand re-interpreting the Nazi concentration camps as the 'power source' for an otherworldly superweapon, documented in the Atrocity Archives, part of a hidden war museum in Amsterdam, and on the other seeing Bob become part of a special SAS squad (carrying a nuclear device as a fail safe) attacking a Nazi base on a cold, dead alien world, whose moon has been etched with the face of Hitler.… (more)

The Atrocity Archives/Charles Stross

Part three of three: The narrative flips again, this time from Nazis to something far more evil, as Bob realises what the real villain is. Unfortunately someone has set the the nuclear device on a countdown, which is exactly what not to do in a universe which is fast approaching its heat death.

Thursday's child - Eric Brown

The alien Kethani offer humans implants to confer immortality after death. Dan is a 'Ferryman' who helps implanted people pass over. His is divorced as his ex-wife refused an implant for religious reasons. He has a daughter he adores and his job gets harder when fake implants appear. The story is an emotional ride all the way.

Imperial army - Adam Roberts

Sidlan is a young male, growing up in a Galactic Empire menaced by the Xflora, a alien race of giant pyshcopathic killers. Sid gets paid to masturbate in state-sponsored clinics.A seemingly chance meeting with a stranger reveals that his sperm are used to grow human warriors to fight the Xflora. Sid joins the war effort and rises through the ranks, but loses his innocence as he learns more about the war and those that direct it. A satire on 'Starship Troopers'.

Faster, higher, stronger - Chris Lawson

Ty is an athlete, a sprinter, who avoids performance enhancing drugs, while all around others do not, and suffers the consequences. Not particularly science-fictional.

The white devil - Sarah Singleton

A tale of a bizarre love affair. Jeriko, a would-be playwright, lives in what appears to be Jacobean London. He recieves a letter he assumes is from his love, which ends with an 8-digit code. She is playing Vittoria in a performance of Webster's "The White Devil" and the code gets him into her dressing room. But nothing is as it seems, just like in one of Webster's plays.… (more)

The Atrocity Archives - Charles Stross

Part one of three: Bob Howard works as a sysadmin at the 'Laundry', which is accessible via a secret door in a stall in the gents at Euston Square tube station in London. The secret 'Laundry' does vital work: its operatives, all sworn to secrecy under the (unpublished) Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act (1916) protect the public against evil, powerful beings from other universes. Alan Turing's last (unpublished) theorem opened up access to other universes via 'thaumaturgic computing', necessitating the founding of the Laundry during the Second World War, to foil a Nazi threat to use these beings against the Allies. Bob is sent to the US by his enigmatic boss Angleton to bring home a British PhD researcher, Mo, whose topic is edging into Laundry territory. He manages to save her from unwilling participation in a summoning by three Arabs, one of whom seems to be possessed. A delightful combination of realism (in the depiction of technology use, office politics and government bureaucracy) and dark fantasy, as funny as it is scary.

Crew-dog - Mary Soon Lee

This is a recording narrated by an almost-intelligent dog. Dogs have achieved intelligence but this frightens some people. A sad story as the narrator realises what really is happening but must feign ignorance.

Josh Lacey - The pilgrim

William Mullins dies when his space rocket blows up. His dream passes onto his son, Joe Mullins, who builds the Mayflower, the first starship. Yet the cost of this dream continues to exact a toll. Both edifying and crushing in equal measure.

Green England - David Redd

Most stories do not stick in the mind over the years but this one I remember reading when this issue first came out. Mizta Shagga and Miz Bina arrive on a diplomatic mission from the USA at a deserted airfield in England.They encounter what seems like a Green paradise, where cities are no more. The American 'diplomats' are on a trade mission and will stop at nothing to sell to a society that ostensibly eschews trade. With what is revealed as a brutally repressive regime, sex still sells. A very funny, and at the same time deeply disturbing story, which makes crass American consumerism seem like utopianism, and which delights in playing with language in a number of ways, from Orwellian "doublespeak" to future divergence in English slang. One further level of (most likely unintended) irony is that this story is in a Scottish magazine. A lost classic.

The Kethani inheritance - Eric Brown

The Kethani are an alien race who offer immortality to those who accept an implant. A confirmed batchelor, who hates his father who has an implant so much that he refuses one, falls in love. Complications ensue and the story reaches a level of emotion (and even romance) not normally seen in science fiction.… (more)

Bad dream - John Christopher

Part three of three: Everything boils over. The anti-EU theme, although topical (see the recent results in EU elections), becomes unrealistic: would the EU ever use force? Likewise, Total is hinted at having a 'dark' potential 'but it is never used in this novel to any great effect. All in all, rather disappointing: the themes in the novel are weak individually and never come together.

First to the Moon! - Stephen Baxter and Simon Bradshaw

Britain stays out of World War Two and lets the Nazis and the Japanese conquer Europe, Russia and Asia. In true 'belt and braces' style, a spinning rocket, powered by solid fuel, is built to claim back some national pride by trying to reach the moon first in 1950. Flown with dash by an public school boy, the brainy, but socially inferior, engineer has to use observation and a slide rule to navigate. One of the best alternate space exploration stories around, it gets the technology and social milieux just right.

Eternity-Magic - David Redd

A tangled tale of a time-travelling woman, her daughter, and a mage, who schools the daughter in magic. They take the side of a king (himself an ex-time traveller) threatened by the rightful heir. However the resolution is never in doubt given their powers.

Instructions for surviving the destruction of Star Probe X-11-57 - Eric Brown

The title gives the context for a story consisting of messages from the on-board emergency AI. There is a nasty twist.

Mehitabel's memories - Michael Coney

Another 'Peninsula' locale story like Poppy Day. Joe Sagar witnesses a ferocious 'land shark' fleeing from a cuddly telepathic alien, a Borkan. The Borkan has been brought as part of Mehitabel's entourage, to witness the annual transfer of her memories to her clone daughter, Rhiannon. While events take an unexpected course, there is considerable humour in the story, especially directed at Mehitabel's gullible 'worshippers.… (more)