Uncanny angles by Sean Williams

Lovers of Uncanny Angles will have three things in common – a love of the Sci-fi or speculative fiction genres; a profound appreciation of the pleasure of a good short story; and joy in seeing the world and relationships from completely different angles. Sean Williams is a master in all three of these areas, and this is a book that weaves them together in interesting ways. But it is not for the faint-hearted. Williams incorporates quantum leaps in his sci-fi vignettes that integrates matter transfer and transportation via de-materialisation and re-materialisation through his D-Mat booths or machines and the struggles for individuals in love and relationships as they negotiate time and space. Each story has its own ingredients of futurism and science understanding, but each has an underlying element of understanding humanity’s foibles, and some stories are also seasoned with the addition of alien characters. But they are all stirring and sometimes profound. Some stories link, but all are stand-alone experiences and the sparkling power of a good short story shines through them all.

Williams has also gifted the reader with brief explanations of his own inspiration for each of the stories, and this insight is a joy in itself. An extra potential delight is the opportunity to follow the ‘choose your own journey’ suggestions as the route for reading the stories. This means that the reader does not need to read from front cover to back, but can follow a path based on a preference for a ‘type’ of story or a theme to be explored. This ‘quantum leap’ possibility for reading this book adds a personal interactive quality that is intriguing, but I confess I am a little too conventional to have explored this route as I worried that I might miss a story and consequently have missed the ‘largest gem’ along this exploratory path. I do not really love the sci-fi genre, but can see that this anthology of short stories might bring joy to devotees or introduce new enthusiasts to the possibilities of discursive creative thinking.

Themes: Science Fiction,Short stories, Relationships, Speculative fiction.

Carolyn Hull