Subject: Review: Blue Shifting by Eric Brown

From: [email-masked] (Simon Speed)
Date: 16 Sep 1996 12:04:15 -0400

"Blue Shifting" by Eric Brown
                 Review Copyright 1996 Simon Speed

Rating on a scale of 0 to 10 : -  6

Summary:- Intense short stories varying from OK to very good

I've always thought that short stories are written science fiction at its
strongest; the freedom that sf gives, if the writer is prepared to take it,
can allow them to get a lot in a very small package. Think 'Harlan Ellison'
and you'll see what I mean.

I had come across a couple of Eric Brown's contributions to Interzone and
had been favourably impressed, so I was looking forward to reading this
collection.  All but one of the pieces -- the title story -- were published
in various science fiction magazines, including Interzone, from 1989 to
1993. All but the title story are set in a variety of near and far futures.

However the more things change in Brown's universe, the more they stay the
same - particularly the nuclear heterosexual family as found amongst the
twentieth century middle class.  What stays just as much the same is that
this family is well and truly fucked up.  And what stays the same even more,
is that the solution to this fucked-upness is LOVE.  The juxtaposition of
the different stories covering the same ground is quite striking.  Important
plot points are repeated from one to another with the different periods of
future history making no apparent difference: - female characters are
chopped up by vengeful males; artists use their art to deny LOVE; and it's
LOVE in the end that provides some sort of solution.

It's unfair of me to present this as Brown's view of the future.  Clearly
what he's doing is working repeatedly through a number of concerns.  It
feels as though what Brown should really have done was written a novel.  In
fact the final (title) story, a recurring time fantasy set in the present
day, works as a closing chapter.

Science fiction is the one genre where human beings' relationship to their
world is explored.  It's the one genre where this is assumed to be within
human control and thus worth talking about.  Other genres talk about the
moral makeup of an individual "character" or about the relationships between
small social groups: anything beyond that is just given and immutable.

I think Brown has abandoned this strength to produce relationship stories in
a science fiction setting.  Characters drive hover cars rather than ordinary
cars, tourist resorts are set on exotic planets rather than in exotic
countries and the mornings interstellar flight from the space port can be
seen zooming overhead.  But all of these are simple equivalents to things
found in the late twentieth century, they are just there to make the stories
"science fiction."

But is the book any good?

The plots are well and truly melodramatic.  A melodrama is like a huge blow
swung at the reader, it's likely to miss and have very little effect, but if
it hits the mark then it hits hard.  And a couple of times Brown hits really
hits the mark - once in particular with the story "The Sons of Apollo" where
the final joke denoument is handled to turn farce into tragedy.

So though I have my criticisms, and though I'll prefer to read Brown's
single stories bracketed by the work of other authors, I'll say -

Yes the book's good - it's worth buying.

Title     : Blue Shifting
Author    : Eric Brown
Published : 1995
Publisher : Pan Books
Price     : Pounds Sterling 4.99
ISBN      : 0-330-33590-1
Pages     : 264

Distribute freely in cyberspace - if you can find it.