Somnambulists

by Allen Ashley

190 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

Reviews

[Des Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was normal in the Fifties, I recall, to have dark streets. And today we have another ‘downturn’ – this story being a truly brilliant evocation of a slowly strengthening twilight (paralleled by Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods). Here I repeat my own phrase of ‘dimmer-switch identities’ – Cf. the earlier ‘fading’ in this book – to denote here an unemployed man who seems to see his wife actually depleting before his very eyes. Thus, the twilight builds as the electricity dims. They live amid the litter of junk mail and other pointless props. He can’t even get “a crappy little office job. Whereas Wagner has hundreds of musicians studying and playing his meister-work even years after his death.”
This story should win prizes. Seriously. Let’s hope people will have light lasting long enough to read it.

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.

[Die Booth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't a good book either.

I think the thing with this one was I've wanted to read some of Allen Ashley's work for quite a while now, so by the time I finally got around to it I'd built up an expectation that wasn't fulfilled. This is pretty pedestrian, lit-leaning sci-fi fare, nicely enough written in places but nothing groundbreaking. Although I will say that he did the 'accidental time-travel' thing earlier and more effectively than Niffenegger.

I'm also giving two stars rather than three for the fact that 'pontificates' 'joshes' and 'quips' are at one point all used within the same paragraph of dialogue (all three in one anthology would have been pushing it in my opinion.)