THE TAIN
DESCRIPTION
The river was clogged with wrecks. Besides the mouldering barges that had
always been there jutted the bows of police boats, and the decks and barrels
of sunken gunships. Inverted tugs like rusting islands. The Thames flowed
slowly around these impediments.
Once, in a city seemingly deserted, Sholl would have explored, in fear and
loneliness. But he had grown disgusted with those feelings, and with the
prurience that quickly mediated them. He walked north, along the top of the
train. He would follow the tracks down past the walls of London, into Victoria
station.
From some miles off, from the direction of South Kensington, came a high
mewing sound. Sholl gripped the shotgun. A multitude lifted from the distant
streets, many thousands of indistinct bodies. They were not birds. The flock
did not move in avian curves, but with spastic jerks, changing speed and
direction with a suddenness birds could never manage. The things trilled and
chattered, moving erratically south.
"[China] has the art of estrangement increasingly wired. The Tain is
deeply uncanny." --M. John Harrison, from his Introduction
EXCERPTS
Read a 900-word excerpt at Fantastic Metropolis.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
- 2002
- PS Publishing (UK)
Hardcover, ISBN 1-902-88064-1
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Amazon.co.uk
- 2002
- PS Publishing (UK)
Paperback, ISBN 1-902-88063-3
Buy from PS Publishing
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Amazon.co.uk
- 2003
- In Cities, ed. Peter Crowther
Gollancz (UK)
Hardcover, ISBN 0-575-07504-X
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Amazon.co.uk
FURTHER INFORMATION
- Annotations
- Quotes
- Reviews
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