Barbarians Storycuts

Having left his first wife for the then 19-year old Barbara, Ian - now waiting in a cafe for his 18-year old mistress, Laura - clearly has no intentions of breaking the habit of a lifetime. Barbara, meanwhile, burns with feverish guilt at the remembrance of a recent holiday fling with a Jamaican bartender. When Barbara's mother Molly comes to visit her fragile daughter and chaotic grandchildren, it is she who must attempt to plaster over the cracks rapidly widening throughout this family. Part of the Storycuts series, this story was previously published in the collection The Atmospheric Railway.

Neville is captivated by the story of his distant aunt, a Victorian woman who set up a school for sickly children. But visiting the part of London where he grew up stirs up memories of his own childhood and personal history, causing him to re-assess his outlook in the present day. Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection The Atmospheric Railway.

To the untrained eye, married antiques dealers Bonnie and Vivien have grown to become almost identical over the years. However, Vivien secretly struggles to retain her own diminishing identity, as she increasingly defers to Bonnie's actions and attitudes. When Vivien spends a dreamy afternoon wandering the countryside without Bonnie, she rediscovers her independence in a secret hiding place, piquing her partner's fear and jealousy. But ultimately it is their shared passion - and an act of criminality - which brings them back together. Part of the Storycuts series, this story was previously published in the collection The Atmospheric Railway.

In 'The Curtain with the Knot in It', the tube-and-bus journey to the Daffodil ward of Croxted Memorial Hospital consumes Alice's existence as she visits her ailing father. But a sinister string of coincidences and self-fulfilling prophecies, triggered by Alice's innocent act of kindness towards the strangely infantile staff member Pauline, leads to devastating consequences. In 'The Laughing Academy', Vincent McCloud, a failed pop-star, leaves his late mother's Glasgow flat for the last time. Stewing in bitterness and grief, his mind focuses on the smug face of his former manager, Delves, who is the cause of his dying career. Nursing his anger, Vincent decides to pay a visit to Delves' Bexhill home. However, when he arrives at Delves' abode and is greeted by the manager's neglected, disturbed wife, thoughts of revenge quickly leave Vincent's mind. Part of the Storycuts series, these two stories were previously published in the collection The Atmospheric Railway.

So this is what happened to the dozen-odd malcontents who could no longer stand the dirty business in Europe and the dirtier politicians at home. There was treachery in the Senate, treason in the House. A plague of liars infested the Republic; the land was rotting with plots. But if the authorities at Washington remained incredulous, stunned into impotency, while the din of murder filled the world, a few mere men, fed up on the mess, sickened while awaiting executive galvanization, and started east to purge their souls. They came from the four quarters of the continent, drawn to the decks of the mule transport by a common sickness and a common necessity. Only two among them had ever before met. They represented all sorts, classes, degrees of education and of ignorance, drawn to a common rendezvous by coincidental nausea incident to the temporary stupidity and poltroonery of those supposed to represent them in the Congress of the Great Republic. The rendezvous was a mule transport reeking with its cargo, still tied up to the sun-scorched wharf where scores of loungers loafed and gazed up at the rail and exchanged badinage with the supercargo. The supercargo consisted of this dozen-odd fed-up ones—eight Americans, three Frenchmen and one Belgian. There was a young soldier of fortune named Carfax, recently discharged from the Pennsylvania State Constabulary, who seemed to feel rather sure of a commission in the British service. Beside him, leaning on the blistering rail, stood a self-possessed young man named Harry Stent. He had been educated abroad; his means were ample; his time his own. He had shot all kinds of big game except a Hun, he told another young fellow—a civil engineer—who stood at his left and whose name was Jim Brown. A youth on crutches, passing along the deck behind them, lingered, listening to the conversation, slightly amused at Stent's game list and his further ambition to bag a Boche. The young man's lameness resulted from a trench acquaintance with the game which Stent desired to hunt. His regiment had been, and still was, the 2nd Foreign Legion. He was on his way back, now, to finish his convalescence in his old home in Finistère. He had been a writer of stories for children. His name was Jacques Wayland.

History was repeating itself; there were moats and nobles in Pennsylvania and vassals in Manhattan and the barbarian hordes were overrunning the land. Algis Budrys was the Hugo and Nebula award nominated author of Rogue Moon and Michaelmas.