Greg Bechtel

Greg Bechtel’s narratives (some are more or less stories) sometimes feel intensely real, gritty, and typically dark. At other times they move slightly beyond the obvious, eclipsing the uncanny and heading right on over into surreal territory. But they somehow also come back to the rough ground. Whether he is walking us through the various strata of modern physics, or detailing life as car seventy-one in a Fredericton taxis service, or learning life lessons as a camp counsellor in Algonquin show more Park, or delivering advertising flyers under an assumed name, Bechtel’s descriptive and emotional language feels entirely earned. As though these might all be transcriptions from life. Or, more probably, so thoroughly written that nothing but the real remains. I was completely convinced.

Not surprisingly for a first story collection, the writing seems to test out different modes. The three iterations of “The Smut Story” have the clinical zeal of David Foster Wallace. Whereas “Blackbird Shuffle” edges into the macabre and feels a bit like Neil Gaiman. More typically, Bechtel’s narrator is a slightly distanced observer even of himself, as in the bildungsroman-like “Boundary Problems” or the lengthy and meandering “The Everett-Wheeler Hypothesis”. Bechtel uses this technique as well to surprisingly good effect in “The Mysterious East (Fredericton, NB)”. And this one nicely dovetails his knack for writing the bones of employment (here as a taxi driver) with the tentative suspicion of the quasi-mystical. It is fascinating.

I purchased this collection on a whim without previous knowledge of the author’s work. I’m glad I took a chance. Gently recommended. show less

Nevertheless is the twenty-first volume of the Tesseracts series of Canadian speculative fiction anthologies. As in earlier editions, there is a varied collection of short stories and poetry by established and newer science fiction and fantasy writers. This anthology is subtitled “An Anthology of Canadian Optimistic Fiction”. Optimism is the theme on which all of the contributions in this anthology are based. Given that theme, I was surprised at how dark many of the stories were. Many of show more the stories are post-apocalyptic and dystopian visions with characters finding optimism in the darkest of circumstances. I found some of the stories a bit confusing; I wasn’t really sure what happened at the end. I enjoyed a few of the stories more than the others. “Pin and Spanner” by Pat Flewwelling was one of the most optimistic of the post-apocalyptic stories in the collection. “Tera & Flux” by Leslie Van Zwol was a futuristic take on the myth of Pandora’s box and the importance of hope. The “Garden” by Darrel Duckworth was like “Of Mice and Men” but more optimistic, in spite of taking place after the ecological collapse. “The Rosedale House” by Michael Reid was funny and sly. Although I didn’t enjoy this collection as much as earlier volumes in the series, I would recommend this anthology as an interesting and varied collection of speculative fiction. show less

Nevertheless is the 21st volume of a Canadian speculative fiction anthology series called Tesseracts, and the common theme for this anthology was "hope". Considering the theme I was extremely satisfied with the speculative situations portrayed, as many of them were apocalyptic and not at all uncomfortably sacchrine. I was impressed with the wide range of tonal and narrative choices, and the intentional choice by the editors to limit the number of stories about self-sacrifice of the main show more character/narrator.

In general, I was surprised by just how much I liked this anthology. Obviously not all of the stories were a hit with me, but I found all of them to be well written and somewhat amazingly, roughly half left me gasping for air. These were good stories edited well. show less

I'm not that big on the science fiction genre other than the established masters-LeGuin, Clarke, Heinlein, but I thoroughly enjoyed this Early Reviewer collection of "optomistic" Canadian science fiction. This collection was put together as an antidote to the election of Donald Trump when a dystopian theme might be a more appropriate response to that horrific event. But as Ms Parrish quotes from the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: "Everything will be all right in the end, if it's not show more all right then it's not the end."

In most such collections, the stories tend to vary in quality. In this one however, the quality of the storytelling is remarkably consistent. On the flip side, there is no unique voice that stands out. Some of my favorite stories: "Steve McQueen and the Hope Particle" by Gavin Bradley where a chemical is discovered that can allow people to survive horrendous experiences but can also be used as a weapon of subjucation. There are ecological nightmares where the planet has become a desert one story, "Across the Seas of Sand" posits humanity establishing itself elsewhere, and another "The Garden" shows people reclaiming the desert. In all the stories there is some form of positive ending which is nice, maybe necessary (if only a delusion that gets us through the day) in these times.

My feeling is that most of the authors are young and comfortable with alternative sexuality. So for readers of particularly delicate sensibilities I would suggest skipping the first story "Inside the Spiral". show less