An Exercise in Causality

About the Book

The twenty-four stories and sketches published here are of varying lengths and are written in varying styles. Some longer ones – Fear No More, Falls the Shadow and A Matter of Time − are straightforward SF adventure stories, set in the near future. Others – Carry Me Home and Renewal − are adventures in less conventional forms. Style of the Time is set in the past; Visiting the Millionaire in the far-distant future. There Was An Old Lady and To Where You Came From have serious messages; others – In a Name, Eradicating stegobium paniceum from pulse-based animal feeds and If There Were No If There Were No Benny Cemoli, for example – are more whimsical. Some shorter pieces like An Exercise in Causality and Six Particles in Search of an Observer are experimental in style. There is also a Ghost Story; and The Fast is a brief excursion into the Gothick. Finally there are sketches. Birth was written for performance as a short play; and Murder In Space can be adapted for staging at a murder-mystery dinner party.

About the Author

The author is a linguist, economist and politician, who has written and lectured over many years on the recent history of Europe − the subject of virtually all his previously published works. He has, however, been a reader of Science Fiction, in all its forms, for well over half a century; and he is distantly related to one of the pioneers of classical SF, Olaf Stapleton. These stories and sketches are his first major excursion into fiction of his own.