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The Ephemera
Nothing lasts forever. Everything is ephemeral.Time slips by, people change, happiness is fleeting.Neil Williamson's collection of bittersweet tales features eighteen stories of from the ends of love affairs and the brief sanity of wartime convalescence, to the fading away of old languages and the dying of humanity itself.An artist communicates solely through a bizarre mosaic, a father and his dying daughter seek hope in plague-ridden Scotland, a London pensioner's existence is inextricably bound to that of his pet canary, and in the jungles of Borneo a criminal searches for his missing son hoping for reconciliation before the end of the world.This edition includes four bonus stories, including one written specially for this collection, and each story has a newly-written afterword."Emotionally complex and displaying a keen eye for detail, the stories in Neil Williamson's collection The Ephemera are a rich and rewarding read from a stylish new Scottish talent."-- World Fantasy Award-winner Jeff VanderMeer"Subtle, evocative and compelling, The Ephemera is a collection that shines with reflection and intelligence."-- Liz Williams"Every one of the stories in the book is a gem."-- Sci-Fi Online"Well-crafted, richly textured and utterly absorbing."-- Interzone
217 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2006
14 people want to read
About the author
Neil Williamson
62 books39 followersNeil Williamson lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and is the author of novels and short stories in genres ranging from science fiction to slipstream.
Several of his books and stories have been shortlisted for awards: Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction (World Fantasy Award), The Ephemera (British Fantasy Award), Arrhythmia (British Science Fiction Association Award), The Moon King (British Fantasy Holdstock Award and British Science Fiction Association Award, runner-up), A Moment of Zugzwang (British Science Fiction Association Award and British Fantasy Award), Nova Scotia vol 2: New Speculative Fiction From Scotland (British Science Fiction Association Award and British Fantasy Award) Charlie Says (British Science Fiction Association Award and British Fantasy Award).
Neil's latest book is: Blood In The Bricks, published by NewCon Press in October 2025.
Several of his books and stories have been shortlisted for awards: Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction (World Fantasy Award), The Ephemera (British Fantasy Award), Arrhythmia (British Science Fiction Association Award), The Moon King (British Fantasy Holdstock Award and British Science Fiction Association Award, runner-up), A Moment of Zugzwang (British Science Fiction Association Award and British Fantasy Award), Nova Scotia vol 2: New Speculative Fiction From Scotland (British Science Fiction Association Award and British Fantasy Award) Charlie Says (British Science Fiction Association Award and British Fantasy Award).
Neil's latest book is: Blood In The Bricks, published by NewCon Press in October 2025.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 16, 2010
I recently pleaded with Andrew Hook at Elastic Press to get rid of those online “Sold Out” signs and put all thirty Elastic titles onto Print-On-Demand status, so that a wider audience can enjoy their back catalogue. This excellent short story collection by Neil Williamson perfectly illustrates my point.
It quickly becomes apparent within these pages that Williamson has all the skill necessary to be any kind of writer, a mainstream “literary” writer for instance, but chooses to incorporate elements of Sci-Fi, Horror, and Supernatural, in order to serve his own agenda rather than any publisher’s or marketeer’s whim. In which case “Slipstream” may be the best term to cover this book.
Williamson is adept at delicately bringing his characters to life, through well-observed little details, and switches with alacrity between a cold impersonal style and strong emotions drawn from real life. Stories like “Shine Alone After The Setting Of The Sun” or “Hard To Do” are essentially very touching tales of love and loss in everyday life, with only very tiniest hints of the “speculative” about them.
Then a story like “The Bone Farmer” on the other hand takes us to a wildly surreal post-plague landscape where huge sculptures of human bone are constructed amid isolated rural landscapes, an astonishingly imaginative and unforgettable story, both shocking and beautiful. In “Softly Under Glass” Williamson dazzles us again with descriptions of paintings by an avant-garde artist that I found so arresting that I can’t believe they don’t exist yet. Brilliantly conceived and constructed, this story grips from first to last. But here’s the thing: it also puzzles, and leaves things unanswered (one of the usual trademarks of “Slipstream”) which is where Williamson is at his strongest.
The territory gets more Slipstream still, with stories like “Amber Rain” (where an ex-girlfriend may or not be an alien, during some unspecified transformation event) or “Postcards”, where another lost girl leads the narrator via video diaries through a series of enigmatic Florentine encounters towards a meeting with madness, the irrational, the unknowable.
In yet another strand to this collection, in “The Happy Gang”, and “The Apparatus”, a kind of historical ghost fiction creeps in, demonstrating the impressive range of the author’s voice. Only in two stories, “Sins Of The Father”, and “Harrowfield” did I feel this voice became a little too “faux” for my taste, somewhat M R Jamesian in the latter case, but there are editors out there who seem to adore such emulations, so I’ll hold my tongue.
As a fellow Glaswegian, it was refreshing to see how Williamson seamlessly combined local elements here (Lanarkshire dialect, the George Bennie experimental train-plane for instance) with Sci-Fi of the wider universe. I’ve only mentioned a few of the many first-rate stories in this book, and for anyone who wants to witness technical excellence of the highest order allied to a fecund and unpredictable imagination, here is a good place to look and learn. Williamson’s voice is gentle and playful, as it seeks out the mysteries that surround us, to record and preserve them to make real the rich atmosphere of life. Doubtless many ephemeral things will be lost to history, but this book should not be one of them.
It quickly becomes apparent within these pages that Williamson has all the skill necessary to be any kind of writer, a mainstream “literary” writer for instance, but chooses to incorporate elements of Sci-Fi, Horror, and Supernatural, in order to serve his own agenda rather than any publisher’s or marketeer’s whim. In which case “Slipstream” may be the best term to cover this book.
Williamson is adept at delicately bringing his characters to life, through well-observed little details, and switches with alacrity between a cold impersonal style and strong emotions drawn from real life. Stories like “Shine Alone After The Setting Of The Sun” or “Hard To Do” are essentially very touching tales of love and loss in everyday life, with only very tiniest hints of the “speculative” about them.
Then a story like “The Bone Farmer” on the other hand takes us to a wildly surreal post-plague landscape where huge sculptures of human bone are constructed amid isolated rural landscapes, an astonishingly imaginative and unforgettable story, both shocking and beautiful. In “Softly Under Glass” Williamson dazzles us again with descriptions of paintings by an avant-garde artist that I found so arresting that I can’t believe they don’t exist yet. Brilliantly conceived and constructed, this story grips from first to last. But here’s the thing: it also puzzles, and leaves things unanswered (one of the usual trademarks of “Slipstream”) which is where Williamson is at his strongest.
The territory gets more Slipstream still, with stories like “Amber Rain” (where an ex-girlfriend may or not be an alien, during some unspecified transformation event) or “Postcards”, where another lost girl leads the narrator via video diaries through a series of enigmatic Florentine encounters towards a meeting with madness, the irrational, the unknowable.
In yet another strand to this collection, in “The Happy Gang”, and “The Apparatus”, a kind of historical ghost fiction creeps in, demonstrating the impressive range of the author’s voice. Only in two stories, “Sins Of The Father”, and “Harrowfield” did I feel this voice became a little too “faux” for my taste, somewhat M R Jamesian in the latter case, but there are editors out there who seem to adore such emulations, so I’ll hold my tongue.
As a fellow Glaswegian, it was refreshing to see how Williamson seamlessly combined local elements here (Lanarkshire dialect, the George Bennie experimental train-plane for instance) with Sci-Fi of the wider universe. I’ve only mentioned a few of the many first-rate stories in this book, and for anyone who wants to witness technical excellence of the highest order allied to a fecund and unpredictable imagination, here is a good place to look and learn. Williamson’s voice is gentle and playful, as it seeks out the mysteries that surround us, to record and preserve them to make real the rich atmosphere of life. Doubtless many ephemeral things will be lost to history, but this book should not be one of them.
January 11, 2021
I choose books to review in my own personal way from my own collection – and the books I choose are ones which I have a good instinct about… and my instinct was right about this book.
In many ways the symphony that is this book ends with ‘Hard To Do’ – representing an organic whole of ‘ephemera’ (or movements if this were music which I sometimes believe it to be) … blending and shifting even as I now try to recall them. These ‘ephemera’ need to be read in bookprint as otherwise they would fly off. Only the pages keep the words in their cages. Bravo! Encore!
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
In many ways the symphony that is this book ends with ‘Hard To Do’ – representing an organic whole of ‘ephemera’ (or movements if this were music which I sometimes believe it to be) … blending and shifting even as I now try to recall them. These ‘ephemera’ need to be read in bookprint as otherwise they would fly off. Only the pages keep the words in their cages. Bravo! Encore!
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews