Mike Stone
IP: 195.93.21.41
Jul 22, 08 - 6:00 PM |
"There Falls No Shadow" and "I Spied A Pale Horse"
A few comments on David E Crossley's There Falls No Shadow" and Mark Timlin's I Spied A Pale Horse, both of which I have now read.
Compared with the "After The Fire" trilogy which I've just reviewed, both these books are quite short, both together being only slightly longer than a single volume of AtF, and are similar enough that I am reviewing them together rather than separately. They both belong to the distinctly less optimistic brand of "post-disaster" story, the kind I tend to associate with John Christopher, as opposed to the more "cosy disasters" of someone like John Wyndham.
Timlin's book is set in southern England, Crossley's in Scotland. Both are set in the immediate aftermath of the Plague, when everyone is still in the "scavenging" stage, living off the leftovers from the Old Times. So it's still motor transport rather than horse drawn, and guns rather than catapults or bows and arrows. There hasn't been a lot of work (though some in TFNS) on setting up a self-sustaining society, and indeed serious questions are raised about its possibility. Will those who try be simply setting themselves up as natural victims, to be immediately plundered or worse by those who find robbery easier than hard work.
Incidentally, this raises a thought about the common complaint that the "Survivors" characters are rather too "middle class". Once the petrol and diesel's gone, might this be so far wrong? In a world where motor transport is either nonexistent or at best a luxury reserved for emergencies, the ability to ride a horse could be a big advantage, and these days upper and middle class folk are more likely to have acquired this skill. Maybe toffs like Garland or the Laird really would inherit the earth. But even if so, in these books it clearly hasn't happened yet.
One of the few cheerful notes is where a Crossley character goes around local farms releasing all the livestock he can find, both for humane reasons, feeling they deserve a chance and to preserve game or livestock for later human survivors. This was a thought that occasionally crossed my mind, but which I don't recall seeing in Survivors or any book etc on the theme.
Crossley gives more information on the cause of the disaster, which apparently was a "war on terror" which escalated with a vengeance. Timlin is less precise about causes, but describes the Last Days in more detail, largely in flashbacks through the eyes of the central character, a policeman who sees his wife and daughters die. He differs from Crossley in largely sticking to this one viewpoint character, where Crossley gives us several.
There is a touch of "Survivors" in Crossley's book, where Emma echoes Abby's prayer that she is not the only one left alive. We also get the phenomenon of obsolete thinking carried on into the new environment, as with the terrorist still fighting her old world battles, when friend and foe alike are now all but extinct.
Timlin has the interesting idea, which I don't recall having seen before, of communities setting up at traffic bottlenecks, such as the Dartford Tunnel, and then charging exorbitant tolls on passers-by. This put me in mind of a comment by Princess Di on receiving the freedom of London. Noting that one of the privileges attaching to this was the right to herd her sheep over Hammersmith Bridge, she pledged herself to contact the Metropolitan Police before doing so. It drew a laugh, but the absence of that right could have been a serious, perhaps crippling, handicap to a medieval sheep farmer, and those days could come again.
An even nastier idea is the change in concepts of money and property. The idea of petrol as a medium of exchange is an old one, certainly for Survivors watchers, but far more unpleasant is the idea that people themselves might be a valuable commodity. The nearest Survivors ever came to that was when the London Group tried to abduct Ruth for the sake of her value as a doctor, but both Crossley and Tilman introduce the grimmer idea that women (and maybe young boys) could be in demand for purposes far removed from the medical. Ruth's unwillingness to get pregnant might be far less tolerated some places than it was in civilised White Cross.
One rather wicked thought. I fear men of this turn of mind could equip themselves quite well at Ann Summers shops or "adult" bookstores. I gather that handcuffs and leg shackles - not to mention whips and canes - are a normal part of the stock in trade at such places. An ideal mart for a wannabe slaveowner.
I was mildly amused and flattered that one of the communities in TFNS was described as being led by "a Mormon gentleman". I hope we'd at least try.
Both books, especially Crossley's, are in my opinion certainly worth a read, but if you like happy endings you may prefer to give them a miss. Use your own judgment.
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John Penny
IP: 88.108.237.106
Jul 23rd, 2008 - 5:30 PM |
Re: "There Falls No Shadow" and "I Spied A Pale Horse"
Mike,
I'm glad that you found both books worth reading and thought provoking, if not particularly heartening.
I have always believed that the old cliche about the veneer of civilisation being thin is probably quite close to the truth and that said, am certain that both these books depict a post apocalyptic future which would be pretty accurate for some.
Equally I have no doubt that in a lawless society pretty young girls would be very vulnerable and would be seen as a commodity by some groups. These girls would need to find protection within communities who still lived by a moral code.
You only have to observe how some people behave now with all our legal and moral controls in place.
As to endings, hopefully at some point David Crossley will continue his saga, so we may well see a more positive ending?
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Mike Stone
IP: 195.93.21.41
Jul 23rd, 2008 - 5:49 PM |
Re: "There Falls No Shadow" and "I Spied A Pale Horse"
A further thought about Emma's (and Abby's) prayer. Maybe after actually meeting one or two of the less palatable survivors, they might be tempted to reconsider it.
It puts me in mind of Ish's first contacts in "Earth Abides". He too, starts out desperate for reassurance that he is not alone in the world, but his attitude changes when the first half dozen or so he meets turn out to vary between useless and downright threatening, and he comes to the conclusion that there can be worse things than solitude.
All in all, having read TFNS and ISaPH, the Isle of Man is looking more attractive than ever.
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