I Read Books: The Invisible Country
A collection of McAuley’s short stories. There are four here that are related to his novel Fairyland, which, perhaps, flesh out his fairies, the liberated dolls – genetically created servitors. They have crept into legend and myth in the wild places of Europe and, freed from their queen, they are finally the strange and inexplicable creatures that they were promised to be.
Maybe. Some of the time. In some of the stories.
In addition there’s two stories about the mad scientist Dr Pretorious (in the alternate 16th century Venice of McAuley’s novel Pasquales Angel and one in 20th century Mexico) both entertaining in slightly different ways. Rounding it out is a near-to-mid future outline of a biologist’s career through the Gene Wars and a far future very strange story about humans arriving on a post-human artefact.
This is an excellent collection if you liked Fairyland and a good one even if you haven’t. Some of the Fairyland stories will be a bit opaque in places if you haven’t read it but then again Fairyland is a little like that anyway, even with the extra stories here.
Read This: For a handful of gorgeous science fiction stories
Don’t Read This: If genetics and science fiction bore you to tears.
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