Status Updates From Stars Of Albion

To the pump room with Jane- 4/5

Travellers Rest - 2/5

Mona Lisa's Smile by bob shaw was good.

Ballard's was good. Didnt like Aldiss

I first read Priest's "Whores" in his collection An Infinite Summer. A chilling tale of soldier on sick-leave having been affected by synaesthetic gas.

Interested to look into more David S. Garnett. "Warlord of Earth" takes a character who'd fit right into Moorcock's Multiverse and plops him into San Francisco during the Height of the 60s.

Was excited to read "The Vitanuls" after having read his Meeting at Infinity over the summer. It involves a miracle cure, the Earth's carrying capacity and a startling conclusion by a remarkable Indian pediatrician turned sannyasin.

"The Giaconda Caper" is the first story I've read by Bob Shaw. The main character is a private psi and he takes on a clever mystery that uncovers facts about The Mona Lisa's past that perhaps should never be revealed.

J.G. Ballard's "A place and a time to die" sets in the present within a small town who's residents have left. An unlikely pair prepare to defend it but the horror they expect, is even more frightening when it doesn't come.

3/5 "Sober Noises of Morning in a Marginal Land": has that stranger in a familiar yet strange land mystery feel, as do many sf shorts. A philosophical tale that reminds us how our day to day duties and our place in society can cloud the bigger picture, of what we could accomplish.

The first story in this collection from 1979 is Brian Aldiss' 'Sober noises of morning in a marginal land', a superbly low-key, philosophical and ambiguous story reminiscent of le Guin's 'Orsinian Tales'. Reminds me why Aldiss is one of my all time favourite writers.