Unexpected Places to Fall From, Unexpected Places to Land by Malcolm Devlin

I would like to thank Laura from Unsung for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Unsung Stories

Published – 28/10

Price – £9.99 paperback please also note you can order for the publisher via http://www.unsungstories.co.uk/unexpected-places-to-fall-from

In the exact same moment, all possible versions of Prentis O’Rourke will cease to exist. By accident, by malice, by conflict, by illness – Prentis will not simply die. He will go extinct. These are the stories of the journeys we take and the journeys we wish we’d taken.

Malcolm Devlin’s second short story collection ranges from science fiction to folk horror as Prentis O’Rourke’s demise echoes across the dimensions. Scientists, artists, ex-nuns, taxi drivers, time travellers and aliens – the same people living varied lives in subtly different worlds. Something unprecedented will happen, and it will colour them all.

Crossing multiple realities, countless versions of ourselves, and shifting backwards and forwards through time, these are stories of forking paths and unexpected destinations – of flying and falling and getting up to try again. 

Travel broadens the mind and in science fiction, fantasy, and horror we tend to go to more paces than the local park or tourist hot spot. Journeys are how we change as we become different people when we finally reach our destination and of course. There also tales to explores the paths we did not take the people we did not become. This is a theme that struck me reading Malcolm Devlin’s new short story collection Unexpected Places to Fall From, Unexpected Places to Land with a collection of tales that constantly surprise, unsettle, and make you think about the roads you’ve been travelling on.

Amongst the stories I enjoyed were

We Are Now Beginning Our Descent – Our unseen narrator tells us about his constant dream of dying in a plane crash. This unsettling tale explores someone who constantly is seeking out that moment of horror for what it turns out their enjoyment. Devlin lets us get inside this character’s head savouring this terrifying idea in a strange form of beauty that ends up consuming all other aspects of their life as they pursue the dream. The endless shuttling of airports and that feeling everyone has when they take off are perfectly captured.

The Purpose of the Dodo is to be Extinct – Prentis O’Rourke has for years dreamed of the moment they get to utter their final words before they die and then suffers an accident killing him. This is an excellent piece of storytelling taking one idea and playing themes and alternative scenarios like watching a large stone drop in a lake and seeing all the ripples a death can cause. Initially it’s about how we experience death as we grow up with animals and grandparents but then the tale explores the impact deaths can have on our loved ones – the conversations we didn’t get to have and what this means for our life afterwards. All of this initially seems quite normal, but the story then moves into exploring how Prentis actually was actually dying at the same moment across the universe. Even for those who ended up never knowing them there are consequences. All the endless variations of one person all cut short at once with a particularly funny yet gruesome list of objects involved. Despite that the tale explores consequences of lives lived or not lived all around one individual we come to know and grow fond of.

We Can Walk It Off Come the Morning – A foggy New Year’s Day in the Irish countryside and two hikers have split up from their friends. They have secrets and a long-tangled past. This felt a tale of getting lost, not just in the countryside, but also as people in their thirties who are in relationships, friendships and jobs that no longer give them joy and now seem to trap them. Devlin makes us feel this fracturing group dynamic but the tale also increasingly feels foreboding as the fog increases and they are seemingly ever distant from their destination. Haunting and unsettling purely delivered through atmosphere and setting.

Five Conversations with my Daughter (Who Travels in Time) – A father tells us of how his young daughter would be suddenly taken over by the personality of his daughter from the future. This tale explores the development and pains of growing up as parents become human rathe than the strange gods we know when we are young. It’s a story though of hope and love and what impressed me where the stakes at play turned out not to be global but very personal. My favourite story in the collection.

The New Man – After an industrial accident, a man awakes in a new body made for by his corporation. This tale explores the dislocation people would feel if you were no longer you anymore and asks exactly how much of the original you would exist if we could transfer memories from body to body. This tale is bittersweet watching the reaction of children and spouses adapt to this change and an anxious feeling develop that the company behind it all dealt with things for their benefit and not our narrator’s. A strange form of immortality that ends up making me feel uncertain if I’d ever want it for myself.

Walking to Doggerland – This is my favourite part of the collection told in three parts throughout the collection. It is a fascinating trilogy exploring three sister and their relationship with one seaside town that was their childhood summer idyll or so it seemed. The eldest sister has bought their seaside retreat but has gotten herself into hospital. Through the three tales we examine the relationships and here three people who all grew up in one family and yet all chosen different lives – a nun, a housewife or a globetrotting photographer and each is not exactly who they want to be. That itself would be a remarkable story but Devlin mixes in parallel worlds, genetics, and the ancient mysterious lands beneath the sea. Its stories of growing up, memory, guilt, secrets, and families and unpeeling these characters to get to the heart of them is a delight to read.

This collection rarely gives you complete answers as to what happens. One story may appear to be horror and then turn joyous or vice versa but what you do get are ideas, characters and scenarios that make you re-appraise your look at life, death, and a sense of self. The best type of journey. Gorgeous writing and Devlin’s skill at weaving these plots is constantly on display and every story in the collection is well worth your time. Strongly recommended!