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Eric Brown's Deep Future
by Keith Brooke
Note: This piece also appears in slightly different
form as the introduction to Deep Future (Cosmos Books, 2001 -
see below for ordering information).
Deep Future
 Okay,
I'm biased.
I'm hardly going to agree to write a foreword to Eric Brown's new
story collection if I dislike his work, now, am I?
But there's more to it than merely liking his work. Eric and I are
friends and collaborators, and more than anything we share an approach
to the genre, a belief in what it is that makes science fiction good
and in what makes good science fiction.
I've been lucky enough to follow Eric's career from two perspectives.
I await each new piece of work as eagerly as any fan, aware that while
the novels are good, Eric's heart -- and his greatest talent -- lies
in the area of short fiction.
But also, I see his work from another angle, an insider's view. I
read drafts of his stories and offer what constructive comments I can
muster. We have lengthy discussions about the many and varied processes
involved in writing -- by telephone, by e-mail and over a pint or two
of Timothy Taylor's Best Bitter on the all-too-rare occasions when geography
and circumstance allow us to get together. And we write together --
short stories, a children's novel, a two-headed
interview (first published in Interzone, now available online
at infinity plus). It really is a privilege
to be so closely involved with a great writer at work, and an experience
that has added greatly to my own work and life.
I first became aware of Eric's work in the late 1980s when a mutual
friend, the novelist Mike Cobley, mentioned Eric Brown among a few writers
to watch. I sought out his early stories and was hooked -- by the plotting
and craft but, more than anything, by the deep compassion in the writing.
Those familiar with Eric's work know that he is a writer who revisits
and explores certain themes and moods: longing, loss, redemption; the
lingering effects of events long past; the power of art to give life
meaning; the quest for love and the questioning of love. This
exploration and re-exploration gives his work tremendous resonance,
unifying apparently disparate stories into a fictional universe that
is as distinctive as any operating in the field of science fiction today.
I think it's possible to categorise science fiction writers into two
schools: those who do SF and those who use it. Of Eric's
generation of writers, perhaps Stephen Baxter, Greg Egan and Paul McAuley
fall squarely in the former camp where the idea is the hero and if it
doesn't work then the whole enterprise collapses (many of the writers
in this school are great stylists, of course, but only in support of
the Big Idea). Along with Ian McDonald, Eric is probably our finest
example from the second school: his ideas are often striking, but they
are always secondary to the exploration of plot and character -- he
uses the tools of genre fiction to delve deeper.
In Deep Future you will find stories that range from the Victorian
past to the far, far future, varying in setting from Eric's native Yorkshire
to Greece, Asia and the far-flung planets of his imagination. You will
find a colourful, atmospheric travel story, which also happens to feature
first contact; a gentle and poignant love story that happens to be set
in virtual reality; alien structures looming on the horizon of a wintery,
near-future Yorkshire. You will find all the trappings of both modern
and traditional science fiction, but always it is their effect and impact
on the characters that is paramount, not the exploration of neat ideas
for their own sake.
None of this should be taken to imply that the science-fictional elements
are incidental in Eric's work: they're not; the stories twist and turn
and burst with ideas as does the very best SF. The point I labour to
make is that these are real and humane stories that contain far more
than just aliens and telepaths and fancy rocketships.
One of the things that has intrigued me about Eric's work, as I have
followed the progress of his career, is that it holds something special
for many different readers. Often the stories singled out for awards
and special mentions are not those I and friends would choose.
We each have our favourites.
For me, Deep Future rises above the merely good because of
two stories.
In "Onward Station" we find a teacher in a difficult situation: increasingly
drawn to an eighteen-year-old student. It is a story that could be mainstream
if it were not for the science-fictional twist that it takes place in
a future where aliens have taken control of the Earth, offering eternal
life to all who accept an implant. The teacher is implanted, his student
-- enigmatic, enchanting, wise beyond her years -- is not...
"Deep Future", the title story of this collection, offers an astounding
vision spanning a mere billion years, a future so transformed as to
be unrecognisable and yet the concerns of the story and its protagonists
are deeply human. In a single bravado gesture, Eric discards the artificial
distinction between author and story and yet... it's still a story,
a fiction, but one made all the more powerful by auctorial intrusion.
As I say, Eric Brown's work holds something special for many different
readers. You may not single out the same examples I do here, but one
thing is certain: Deep Future contains stories that will surprise,
delight and move you, stories that will lodge themselves in your mind,
luring you back for further readings. I've been privileged to watch
this author at work for the past ten or more years. Now it's your turn.
...Keith Brooke, August 2000
availability
Deep Future, a short story collection by
Eric Brown with an introduction by Keith Brooke (trade paperback,
ISBN 1587153351). Published by Cosmos Books in 2001.
Order online using these links and infinity
plus will benefit:
...Deep Future, trade paperback, from Amazon.com
or Amazon.co.uk.
Back
to infinity plus introduces...
© Keith Brooke 2000, 2004
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