Eclectic Dreams - The Milford Anthology edited by J W Anderson, Pete W Sutton and Liz Williams

I would like to thank the editors for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher - Kristell Ink

Published - 7th April

Price - £14.95 paperback £5.99 Kindle ebook

Swashbucklers in space and superhero grandmothers. Mountain magic and generation ships. War poets and the music of the abandoned. Inscrutable aliens and deals with the Devil. Isolated islands and the bureaucracy of futures. The mechanical possessed and the secrets of stately homes.

These are a few of the stories that have passed through the Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference over the years, scrutinized and pulled apart and put back together again before finding a place they call home.

We have gathered them together, along with reflections of their journeys, into this collection to support the Milford Bursary Scheme which provides funding for writers of colour to attend.

We hope you enjoy them as much as we have.

Writing (and I’ll include reviewing) can be a solitary pursuit. Getting words on the page and trying to make them say what you’re thinking is hard and even then you’re often not sure if it works. It is also something you’ll get better at (well I hope so) as you practise again and again. But getting that feedback to say you’re onto the right path and doing the right thing is ever helpful. In the UK for over 50 years the SF&F community has run a week long Milford SF Writer’s Workshop where authors can as a group share their work; get critique and feedback with a view towards sharing thoughts, and making the stories stronger. It has had the likes of Diana Wynn Jones, Mary Gentle, Charles Stross and Geoff Ryman all taking part and now hosts authors from across the world including a bursary for non-white and finacially disadvantaged authors as well. That in itself is something to celebrate and alongside that this year sees the publication of Eclectic Dreams - The Milford Anthology edited by J W Anderson, Pete W Sutton and Liz Williams where the aim is to further support the good work of the Workshop. I am also pleased to report its a hugely enjoyable and high quality selection of tales to entertain you and well worth your time.

The focus of this anthology is tales the authors themselves used at Milford and the experience they had using feedback and making the story better. Starting this and a great lesson perhaps in how everyone starts is a tale named Ryland’s Story from 1985’s workshop by a 24 year old writer named Neil Gaiman. Yes that one and in his introduction to the story it’s mournfully described as unimprovable. because of the many weaknesses in the story; plus the many notes it got back at the time. He may well be right it’s definitely not Gaiman as you’ll know it there are hints though; a mysterious cold war based office that uses the power of stories with an unusually visual style that gives hints of tales to come but at the same time very much not going to get take the world by storm. This is like a early music band’s cover rough, has quite a few influences but you can see potential.

Jumping to 2019 we get Tiffani Angus’ Mama Leaf and this is as Angus describes a haunting feminist fairytale of a put upon mother under pressure from her blunt husband to give him a son. One made out of magic and cloth and yet tragedy keeps coming for the family. A tale of women under control and how male privilege always is first place in many families. Darkly magical.

Back to 1998 and Ben Jeape’s strange, surreal, funny and not quite a children’s tale ago With The Flow. This has for starters the science of traffic jams, a Nobel Prize winner and a young boy’s family break-up. It mixes dark and light moments with abandon and that is to its credit as we wonder how this young boy’s Grandmother will help her son and daughter when they’re in danger. It also has a Morris Minor when least expected - very wry and enjoyable!

David Langford’s 1977 effort named Serpent Eggs is an example of how a good idea always needs future drafting and eventually this was a very successful story and it is indeed very good. A UFO researcher goes to investigate a strange community on a very remote Scottish Isle. It’s got a dash of folk horror, SF and even Cold War menace and keeps us on our toes as to what on earth is going on. Claustrophobic and filled with menace it’s hugely enjoyable.

Jacey Bedford in 2009 brought Pitch a tale of a Salesman trying to win from the Devil. It’s got a touch of a classic Twilight Zone episode in its surreal version of hell( brings tension nearly to the boil and we await the pay-off which is indeed satisfyingly delivered!

Val Nolan’s tale is one of my favourites on the collection - Old School- An Oral History of Captain Dick Chase. Delivered as a series of talking heads describing how a far future Earth in danger finds a hero frozen in Space with all his human flaws there to see. Gently taking the proverbial out of the likes of Buck Rogers and Captain Kirk it is also joyously filled with SF in jokes and very funny. It also reminds us going forwards not reverse in SF is important!

Cherith Baldry brings The Venetian Cat a sumptuous medieval Venetian tale of a mad ruler and someone trying to stop her. It’s using magical automatons in cat and lion form; has a bittersweet finale and is overall impressively stylish and a world you’d love to explore. Very impressive storytelling in miniature form.

Victor Fernando R Ocampo’s 2014 Blessed Are The Hungry takes us to space in a Filipino based generation starship where a cruel church is in control and takes any criticism badly often leading to excommunication via an airlock. I loved the modern themes of control and revolution and there is an overall sense of people under constant surveillance and risk of death that makes the stakes for our narrator trying to save her family very real.

Guy T Martland’s World of War is a sobering SF tale of war in the solar system and yet the need for poets even then. Haunting, lyrical and just a tad devastating that hundreds of years later we may need someone to tell us how bad war is even then.

Nick Moulton’s Scenes From Domestic Life With The Gentry mixes Pride and Prejudice with a touch of The Tripods and Howard’s End: a super loyal servant walks us through a key day for his family when the Gentry - upper class aristocrats controlled by alien parasites come to stay. Bleak, surprising and quietly unnerving it’s got a lot to say about the status hungry amongst us.

Al Robertson’s 2008 Of Dawn is another favourite tale. A recently bereaved and grief stricken women mourning her soldier poet brother who died in war is lost and then starts to remember a childhood moment; gets tangled with more strange poets and musicians and is constantly haunted by a man with no skin: Robertson captures a sense of grief, loss confusion and then the joy of creating things and art. This powerfully emotional tale crosses between horror and fantasy so the final outcome is not easily predicted and I find it a very satisfying tale to savour.

JW Anderson concludes the stories with A Last Day a mysterious quasi SF martial arts tale as an old man is visited by a creature known as The Reaper and means he has hours to live. A tale that explores knowing your time is up; giving it all you have got and perhaps knowing you did your best regardless. Which perhaps sums up the whole ethos of the collection to ever improve.

Thi is a very rewarding collection. As well as a brilliant collection of varied tales to enjoy this gives some perspective on how writers work and how collaboration and feedback helps make tales improve. A worthy cause and a very valuable collection. Highly recommended!