Welcome to the Lair!
Exploring dark alleys. Discovering new nightmares.
Revisiting the masters.
Duncan was nine years old on 5/5. The day the extra season came.
He had just got used to the reversed seasons in Australia when Nova began, shoving boring old Autumn out of the way and pushing in between it and Winter. A new season of unrelenting starshine and luminous nights.
For Duncan, it was the most exciting thing ever! All the rest of the world wanted to know was: when will Nova end?
And will the world end with it?
Fifth Season by David Wailing is a fantastic sci-fi short story. I love the logistics behind the cause of the extra hot season of constant light. Duncan is the perfect character to convey the changes of daily life, as well as the transformation of Earth. While nothing is written about aliens, I thought the hinting at something unnatural is a fascinating touch.
Nineteen Seventy-Steve is a sweet story, involving an abstract form of time-travel, and I cried over the ending. Happy tears, but tears nonetheless. Time warp, indeed.
Drabbles is a collection of flash fiction, which is also included. Each drabble is more a moment of amusement than anything else. The very last story is an absolute delight.
I've read some of Wailing's other work, and I continue to enjoy his writing style, regardless of which genre he is fooling around with. The author is an artist with words.
As always,
AstraDaemon
One hundred years in the future, enormous mining vessels scour the surface of the Moon, prospecting for valuable metals and minerals. Trapped onboard for months at a time, the crew use drugs, virtual environments, gambling and pitfights to make life bearable.
Joel Miller doesn’t need any of those things. He has a new reason to live: an enemy. A private war to the death.
But Miller has no idea that there’s a hidden side to his duel. The hate keeping him alive is the most valuable commodity the Moon has to offer...
Duallists by David Wailing is a crime drama with a science fiction setting, mixed with elements of horror and mystery, and it's bloody fantastic! At first, with the story told from Miller's POV, I thought this might be a futuristic psychological thriller about a man's obsession with revenge, but Wailing uses the sci-fi details to create a technological trail hinting at what might really be going on at the Moon mining facility.
Miller's personal war is merely one piece of a complicated puzzle. While the author doesn't go into much detail about the characters, aside from Miller, this emphasizes how superficial their friendships and interactions are, which is just as well, once the true horror is revealed towards the end. Miller's reaction to the jaw-dropping revelation is the ultimate chess move.
Regardless of which genre you normally read, Wailing has created a story which will appeal to many different kinds of readers. I highly recommend Duallists.
As always,
AstraDaemon
It’s four in the morning and Emily is heading home on a London Underground train. But the Night Tube is running slow tonight – delays caused by a signal failure, as usual.
The train stops again, stuck in a tunnel between Tube stations. And then the lights go off. The motors cut out. Silence from the driver.
All the doors slide open at the same time, exposing the passengers to the tunnel.
To let them out?
Or to let something in?
Signal Failure by David Wailing is not a story you want to be reading on the subway. Wailing took an inconvenience and turned it into traumatic nightmare. Although, I'm still unsure what exactly took place in the tunnel and the fate of the train remains a mystery, the suspense had me in a full panic. Not much detail is given about the passengers, but I feared for them, just the same.
I am pleasantly surprised at how Wailing transformed a common horror theme into a very original and extremely terrifying story. I couldn't help but wonder if Emily's mother experienced something similar. I would LOVE to see Signal Failure become a movie.
As always,
AstraDaemon
