The Quarter Century Project - Galveston by Sean Stewart
So November 2026 is a milestone birthday for me and over the next two years I’m looking at winners of the British Fantasy Society Best Novel, The Clarke Award, the British Science Fiction Best Novel and the World fantasy Best Novel from 2000 to 2026. What will work for me, what does not and do I think these winners hold up today.
Publisher – Dover/Ace
Price – £7.99 kindle ebook
More than one hundred years after surviving the deadly flood of 1900, the island of Galveston once again is threatened when reality comes face to face with a magic that transforms the city, leaving it caught up in a seemingly endless Mardi Gras.
Today I’m looking at the World Fantasy winner of 2001 Galveston by Sean Stewart. Typically, we think fantasy should be a thing of the past – perhaps in our minds it is a gap that allows science and rationality to be overlooked. We have also seen huge growth in contemporary fantasy over this century - which perhaps shows we can see (or desire gaps for magic to fill in our own lives. It is a lot rare to see future based fantasy. On paper Galveston should be my cup of tea, but I have to say I found it quite flawed and failed to entertain on many levels.
In 2004 a mighty storm on the island of Galveston off the coast of Texas led to a release of magic and effectively two Galvestons living uncomfortably alongside each other. The wider world has regressed to a much more basic and poorer way of life where cars, power and emidine are in short supply. There is another world eternally in night filled with magic and where bargain can be made. There are gates and guardians, but the system and guardians are aging and falling apart. Sloane Gardner is the daughter of one of the Guardians. Her mother is dying and Sloane’s desire not to see this happen leads to a poor bargain that creates a a domino effect on an island that has resisted change which has a heavy impact for young Josh a local medic.
Until I started this exercise, I’d never heard of Galveston this side of the Pond and it’s never been on my radar so this was very much a new experience. Unfortunately, I found it a tepid one. For a story set in a post-apocalyptic 2024 it feels in credibly old fashioned very much a cross between southern gothic and a western. We get the odd side of the 21st century but it feels curiously quiet on what in reality would be huge change that should cast a long shadow. The world feels for me quite flimsy in positing how its future actually works. Stewart can create interesting scenes such as the eternal night of Mardi Gras, but with its small town corruption, corrupt officials and so many mentions of poker this feels way more a nostalgic western you wouldn’t be surprised to see in a Ray Bradbury story but for me lacks the charm and poetry that Bradbury excelled at. It is also incredibly slow with very little happening.
This is not helped by the way Stwart creates characters. It has been a long time since I’ve read a book where a male author decides to constantly mention his main characters large breasts and even fat legs. Sloane feels more a mechanical device than someone to get to know and understand. Josh is stubborn and nobel but innocent and guess what the world hits back. I get told lots about the main characters but never got to care about them. There is that theme of old world strange the birth of a new one, but it feels thinly explored and more quaint moralistic ending rather than anything particularly radical or informative about the world it comes from.
Galveston is I fear a book very much feeling to represent 20th century rather than 21st century fantasy and though there are themes I am interested in the conflict of old and new worlds have been better explored by many many more authors over the years since . Charmless, shallow and a tedious read. Not recommended!
