The Heisenberg Mutation and Other Transfigurations by Steve Redwood

Now, I'd heard of Steve Redwood – I knew he had one novel already published, Fisher of Devils – but I hadn't read anything by him before I picked up The Heisenberg Mutation. Nor was I familiar with the publisher of this chapbook, D-Press; so I had no idea what to expect of the four stories in the pamphlet. What I got was a diverse bunch of tales with, as the title suggests, change (in all its forms) as a common theme.

The collection gets off to a fine start with 'Going Back', in which a young man named Simon Brent is goaded into raping Jenny Smith, a girl he's attracted to, on a drunken night out. In the aftermath, Jenny stumbles into the path of an oncoming car, and is run over. Wracked with guilt, Simon devotes his life to funding research into time travel, in the hope that one day he will be able to return to the past and change things. But, when he gets his chance, will he use it wisely?

The story is told in patchwork fashion, flitting back and forth between times and narrators, leaving the reader thoroughly disorientated, in a way that only great fantastic fiction can. Yet Redwood controls his tale superbly; if we need to read 'Going Back' more than once to understand it, that's because of our own inattentiveness the first time. Such a feat of storytelling would be remarkable enough on its own; but add to that Redwood's vivid imagery and skilful depiction of emotion, and you have something very special indeed.

After such a start, you wonder how the author is going to keep up the momentum. Yet, keep it up he does, with 'Off the Shelf', set in a future (or perhaps sideways) world where men borrow women from a Library staffed by the alien Blueskins. John William Smith is due to return Maria 8, who is in desperate need of a Service; but her memory would be erased in the process, and John doesn't want that to happen, since he has become attached to Maria. Trouble is, she has been reserved – by no one less than the Prime, who rules the city. So there is nothing for it but to run away...

This story asks questions about love and humanity, and is certain to leave you with plenty to think about. But... just when you think you have a handle on the story, Redwood pulls the rug from under your feet. It's a bold move but, as with the first story's unusual structure, the author is skilled enough to pull it off. Also like 'Going Back', this is a welcome reminder that science fiction and fantasy enable us to address concerns and tell stories in ways that mimetic fiction does not.

I mention this because it came to mind when I was reading the third story, 'The Solaris Effect'. Here, we meet Mike, who has convinced Jenny to come back to his flat on the pretext of watching the original film version of Solaris. In fact, Mike has been talked into a bet, that he can't get Jenny into bed before the night is out. The story chronicles their relationship until the next morning. All the elements I had come to expect of Redwood were present: the dialogue is sharp, the imagery evocative, the characters rounded; but I still came away feeling disappointed. It felt almost as though Redwood was relying on the dialogue to make up for a dearth of something else, even though there was nothing that seemed particularly to be lacking. With hindsight, the reason becomes clear: the previous two stories were so extraordinary that 'The Solaris Effect' felt lesser simply because there is nothing in it to give that sense of dislocation. Rest assured that, in fact, it is not lesser at all.

The final story in the book is, unfortunately, also the weakest. 'The Heisenberg Mutation' is the tall tale of the elderly – and fabulously rich – Charles Algernon Soames, whose fortune is so sought after by other people that he turns into his own Last Will and Testament. It's a marked change of pace from the previous stories, and one that is not entirely successful. The main problem is that it reads too much like sub-par Robert Rankin. This is perhaps a little unfair on Redwood, since it must be extremely difficult to write a story of this type and not sound like Rankin; but I'm afraid I didn't find it funny enough. Still, judgements on humorous fiction are always going to be highly subjective, and there are far worse authors to sound like than Robert Rankin. And, with the other riches on offer here, I think we can let this one go.

So, out of the four stories in The Heisenberg Mutation, two number among the best short fiction I have read in quite some time, one suffers only in comparison with those two, and one is not so good. A 75% success rate is good for any short story collection, even more so when the good stories are of such a high calibre as these are. I will resist the temptation to make a cheap pun about this book changing your life; but it is a very good read, and you should hunt down a copy right away.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

D-Press