British Fantasy Award nominee 2014.
Edited by David Rix.
Trains occupy a special place in the human psyche.
The twin threads of the rails forge ahead from place to place, the
ultimate symbol of travel and connection and all the hopes, fantasies,
fears, reasons, romance and excitement that come with that. The links
between points, the bridges and tunnels, are always so much more
profound than borders or walls. And yet you travel these links through a world that is isolated from normal life and unique to itself. The
railways are so mundane and taken for granted, passing through the
backs of your cities and towns, yet they are worlds that cannot be
visited, cannot be known. Worlds that can only be glimpsed from
blurred windows or from the far end of the platform. Hidden places.
Private places. Places where the ordinary and the secret meet.
This was the mood in which
Rustblind and Silverbright came into being – a book of railway stories
that aimed to look far beyond what you might expect from classic horror or sci-fi. Like any good journey, the scenery of this book is
ever-changing. You will ride the rails of language and imagination
through many and varied places – some almost unendurably disturbing,
some bleak and miserable, some surreal and strange, some touching and
moving, some absurd and comical, some exquisitely beautiful. This is a
collection that ranges widely from the almost-familiar double-track
line of slipstream fiction to the grungy metro of sci-fi and the dark
and sparsely served branch line of pure horror, while the squawking
locomotives of absurdism jostle with still stranger trains that ride to – other places.
Contents:
- Tetsudo Fan - Andrew Hook
- On The Level- Allen Ashley
- The Wandering Scent - Aliya Whiteley
- To the Anhalt Station - John Howard
- Death Trains Of Durdensk - Daniella Geary
- Vivian Guppy and the Brighton Belle - Nina Allan
- Last Train - Joel Lane
- Writer's Block - Stephen Fowler
- Northern Line Tube Announcement - Anon
- The Path of Garden Forks - Rhys Hughes
- District to Upminster - Marion Pitman
- Wi-Fi Enabled - RD Hodkinson
- Stratford International - D McGroarty
- The Cuts - Danny Rhodes
- Sleepers - Christopher Harman
- Escape on a Train - Steve Rasnic Tem
- Choice - Charles Wilkinson
- Embankmen - Gavin Salisbury
- Sunday Relatives - Douglas Thompson
- The Engineered Soul - Jet McDonald
- Didcotts - John Greenwood
- The Keeper - Andrew Coulthard
- Not All Trains Crash - Steven Pirie
- The Turning Track - Rosanne Rabinowitz and Matt Joiner
