Remnant by Conrad Williams
Publisher - Absinthe Books
Published - Out Now
Price - £18 hardback £2.99 ebook via https://pspublishing.co.uk/remnant-ebook-by-conrad-williams-6389-p.asp
Snæfellsjökull has revealed a secret; an artefact buried in the ice that no one can explain. When Claire is invited along to the excavation in her capacity as a glacial archaeologist, she leaps at the chance. With a recent break-up still very fresh in her mind, she needs a new start and hopes this is it.
As the excavation progresses, Claire realises that this assignment is very different from what she imagined, and secrets are everywhere; not all of them buried. As the ghosts of her past become enmeshed in her very dangerous present, who knows what will happen, and what further mysteries will be revealed?
An outstanding Arctic tale of the supernatural, The Remnant certainly ramps up the chills.
Horror is often described as having our reality broken - that sense of order we crave being broken against our will but a key part of those stories is we have to then look the disruption in the face (if it has one or not) and we have to accept in that act we either save or damn ourselves. In Conrad Williams’ eerie novella Remnant we are taken to a remote part of Iceland for a expedition that is going very wrong and a woman who needs to face both danger and her past.
Claire is just facing the bitter end of a relationship when an unexpected job opportunity arises with perfect timing. Professor Mischke of Icelandic fame needs her expert knowledge of glaciers at Snaefellsjokill as his team is suddenly short. The chance to leave the house and get some needed funds is too much to resist so the next day Claire finds herself meeting her teammates minus the good Professor who doesn’t like fieldwork. Claire finds an operation being run on the cheap with inexperienced students and a gruff troubling man named Rugga who seems set to be in opposition to her but Claire has met his type before and will take no prisoners herself. The knowledge there is something unexpected in the ice though pulls the team on both for potential academic glory and extreme danger
I though Remnant was a very good spooky tale that makes great use of the Icelandic Glacier setting to create the feeling of a small cast lost in another world. You can feel the cold and distance around the tale when we reach Iceland and this strange environment not welcoming to humans is the perfect place for dangers of all sorts to raise their head. The inexperienced crew, the lack of regard to safety and the menacing Rugga feel like a series of dangers to be faced and then as the tale progresses supernatural elements come in but for me the key is the key character of Claire who is at the centre of everything.
Claire is a fascinating central character very much taking life on her own terms. She’s worked hard to be an expert on her field and isn’t going to let anyone attempt to do the wrong thing. Her standing up the crew on key points creates great scenes of showing her independence and that she knows her own value and when to put her foot down. But Williams also gives us sides of her outside the profession; someone bruising from both a relationship that morphed into something very painful and the recent suicide of a dear friend. For Claire as well well as the financial and academic reward we see going to her favourite white open spaces is also a chance for her to heal and process but these scars are hard to heal. I love though that we find the term Remnant relates to a Glacier now cut off from the main sheet; a dying thing and yet horror fans will know it better for the use towards hauntings which is very apt for this story.
Throughout supernatural elements veer often in the form of Claire’s lost friend Becks haunting her carrying all the injuries but trying to relay some key message. Entering the glacier is a wonderful eerie scene as we feel both the physical danger and sense of something else is afoot and aware of Claire. There is a increasing sense of menace in the story powering it tot he final act. There there is perhaps one reveal that needed a little more foreshadowing but overall I felt worked and cast a new light on the events and a very satisfactory ending awaits.
Remnant is a successful supernatural tale of cold, fear and importantly facing those fears. What happens after that is always uncertain but we always tend to learn something about ourselves in the process. A great tale for a cool dark night with a howling wind outside the window wanting to get in. Highly recommended!
