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Saving for a Sunny Day [short story]

av Ian Watson

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3710659,797 (3.14)4
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Saving For A Sunny Day’ is a single-author short story collection and the author is Ian Watson. There’s a long introduction by Adam Roberts telling us what a brilliant writer Mr Watson is. Oddly, it put me off him. On the other hand, when I read the first couple of stories, I quickly realised that he is very good.

The fiction starts with ‘The Walker In The Cemetery’ which was done for a Cthulhu anthology. What more can be done with Lovecraft’s old god? Watson came up with something new, multiple Chthulhus in different sizes all over the world. The CERN project might be to blame with their attempts to recreate the conditions at the beginning of time. Aptly, the protagonist is a CERN bureaucrat, one Sally Hughes, and she’s touring the Necropolis of Staglieno in Genoa with a large, international tourist group when the excrement hits the air-conditioning. They wonder why the television in the office is showing an old horror movie of a monster attacking ships in New York harbour then realise its CNN! A very enjoyable horror yarn as long as you’re not in it.

‘Cages’ is weird SF. Hoops come to Earth from somewhere. They’re about a metre in diameter and may be doorways to another world but are impenetrable and there’s only a mess of swirling colours to be seen in them. When a hoop swoops over a person, it leaves them with a cage around some part of their body, knee, hip, groin, shoulder, head, etc. The cage is well tied in and doesn’t hurt though it does impede daily life. Various agencies are trying to find some solution and the latest desperate gig is to blast the hoops with techno-music. It takes talent to pull off something this crazy and make it good. Sympathetic characters help.

‘Weredog Of Bucharest’ is set in the capital of Romania. Crime writer Paul is visiting fellow writer Max as the city may be a good setting for his next novel. There are, it says, a million stray dogs in Bucharest. Max is pals with the local police so when a grisly ripper murder happens in a lift, they get to see the scene. This had a hint of black humour and the characters were thoroughly unlovable but realistic. I liked it.

‘Palm Sunday’ is set in some unknown city where palm reading is all the rage and treated as a religion. Rootha’s husband John goes off to the capital on business every month and she promptly leaps into bed with Pool, her true love. She is keen that her palm will predict a change of life soon, one that will enable her to be with Pool. The palm reader, unaware of her situation, advises her to visit a temple and complications ensue. This wasn’t my cup of tea because my loathing for all forms of charlatanism extends even to a fantasy that just pretends it’s real.

What do you do when a town dies? In Clark’s County, North Carolina, all the textile jobs have gone to Mexico. The factories are closed and the lack of tax income means the local government has to cut back. It’s that bad cycle of recession. As with the films ‘Brassed Off’ and ‘The Full Monty’, salvation may lay in art. Dee-Dee and her friends plan to emulate a dance troupe they saw on television, performing aerial ballet on the wall of a skyscraper. A local tycoon funds it and they begin to draw attention though most people are still focused on the aliens. Recently landed, they look like turkeys but fly through the air with the greatest of ease. Some kind of anti-gravity is the best theory. The aliens are harmless but aloof. A marvellous mix of gritty realism and daft Science Fiction.

Gritty realism and fantasy come together in ‘A Nose For Such Things’. Nigel is an English reporter who has the nose of Lord Elgin. He’s seen it in paintings and Gran assures him they are descended from the famous marble thief. There are riots in Athens and Nigel is sent to cover the story, photographer in tow. Its police versus young protesters on the Parthenon and then weird things start to happen. Is Nigel losing his marbles? Like many of the stories from this well-travelled author, it was notable for the local atmosphere and colour.

‘Long Stay’ is set in a near-future England where airport car parks have grown so much that they now take up most of the space between cities, especially in the south-east. Robert Taverner comes back from a trip and is looking for his vehicle in the Luton-Stansted car park. He can’t find it and tries to get back to the terminal for help. This isn’t easy. In the afterword, Watson refers to this as his ‘Ballardian’ take on the horrid business of using British airports.’ The story seems far-out at first glance but then you begin to realise it could happen.

‘Tales From The Zombible’ is a brilliant riff on the New Testament. ‘A Walk Of Solace With My Dead Baby’ was a gloomier look at death in a Britain effectively ruled by China where the government is trying to reduce the population. It’s set in Northampton and a famous hairy comic book writer has a walk-on part.

I liked the opening of ‘A Waterfall Of Nights’ for, like many an Oxford tourist, I too have had a pint in The Eagle And Child Pub and enjoyed the illogical thrill of sharing space, if not time, with J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The characters in the pub are discussing the possibility of life on other planets but one thinks the only aliens to visit Earth will be old AIs, perhaps from previous universes. This idea develops into an art installation and a startling revelation. Original and fascinating.

The book concludes with the title story ‘Saving For A Sunny Day’ in which souls are bar-coded and reincarnation is a fact of life, thanks to a benign AI. that rules the world. Unfortunately, responsibility for past lives means you inherit the debts or assets of your former self. Little Jimmy Robertson has inherited a debt of nine million dollars and he’s ugly to boot. However, he’s also smart. Another great story.

I approached ‘Saving For A Sunny Day’ warily because English ‘literary’ authors of speculative fiction sometimes tend towards gloom, futility and stories with no conclusion. This is known as sophistication. While sophisticated and intelligent, Ian Watson is also witty, entertaining, original and easy to read. He doesn’t do long boring descriptions or strained similes to show he can write. Best of all, he doesn’t overwrite to cover a thin plot. There’s plenty happening in all these stories. Here be multiple Cthulhus, aliens who disable you, turkey-shaped flying aliens, weredogs, noble phantoms, giant car parks and sneaky AIs in Oxfordshire. Watson may be a bit mad but he’s worth reading.

Eamonn Murphy ( )
1 rösta bigfootmurf | May 13, 2020 |
This is a very interesting collection of short stories, a favorite format for me, especially in ereader format. I had not had the opportunity to read anything by Ian Watson before receiving this as a early review copy so I enjoyed that part of it too, a new voice. I selected this thinking it was science fiction, and yes there is that in some of the stories. But there is much more than just that, often in very surprising plots, subtle humor and observation of people in general.

This was my first experience with the early reviewer process and it took me more time than I care to admit to figure out how to get this review posted. ( )
  lusi222 | Jan 13, 2013 |
Unfortunately, although I liked about half of the stories, the overall piece for me was not great.

My favorite pieces are: Palm Sunday , A Nose for Things, Long Stay, Tales from the Zombiebible, Waterfall of Lights, and A Walk of Solace with my Dead Baby.

I must say that the author's take on artificial intelligence, history, and science is intriguing. But, many of the stories felt like streams of consciousness that were hard to follow and unfinished thoughts. I realize that stories don't always have to end in a nice neat story, but this piece took that to an extreme.

Maybe I have to read more of his works to get a feel for his type of writing. Then, maybe I can appreciate him a little more.

In a nutshell, some of the stories had the science-fiction feel I was looking for, but the entire work was mediocre at best, in my opinion. ( )
  Virasana123 | Jun 30, 2012 |
This is a well-crafted collection of short stories, with some intriguing concepts. I was impressed by the range of voices; an author's collection of short stories can, all too often, result in a 'saminess' which Ian Watson successfully avoided. The range in subject matter did, at times, feel like a whirlwind tour of sci-fi and fantasy tropes, from the chilling nod to Lovecraft's Cthulhu in the opening story, through zombies and vampires and werewolves and aliens and ... and ... All in all, though, I found these to be intelligently written stories, and I will be looking for more of Ian Watson's work. ( )
  PaulaJoyce | Jun 27, 2012 |
I had not read anything by Ian Watson for a long time. My bad!

This collection of stories gives me what I want from science fiction: it shows me things I had not thought about and shows me more about things I had.

The first story is about what Cthulhu’s agenda is for the time he resurfaces. Sadism is merely a diversion along the way. Then we have a story about what an alien civilization would be thinking about (very fast) while their Dyson sphere collapses into a black hole. The image of Dyson spheres as Matrioshka (nesting) dolls is vivid.

There are also intriguing extrapolations of aliens tagging humans, crystal power, homeopathic remedies, who might be behind the demand to return the Elgin Marbles, what sort of bible Zombies would read, a new way to assist grieving, and where the AIs are who created the universe were hiding.

'Saving for a Sunny Day' is a new take on reincarnation, karma, moral accountancy, and artificial stupidity. 'A Nose For Such Things' is about a Chinese alchemist in the Prague of HRE Rudolf II and why she was there. Penetrate the enigma of the Cinnabar Grotto and you will have no trouble understanding this.

For me the only clinker in the collection is the story 'Weredog of Bucharest', which fell flat.

Kudos to the ubiquitous Darrell Schweitzer for having commissioned some of these stories. ( )
  bertilak | Apr 22, 2012 |
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