While this anthology by Tony Thorne, MBE, paints itself as a collection of futuristic tales, like all good science fiction it is firmly grounded in day-to-day existence. Whether the protagonists are the feuding biologists of “Death On the Fly,” whose experiments with flies give a whole new meaning to the term computer virus, or the nervous priests of “Clerical Error” who believe that they’ve found the perfect solution to the “priest problem,” Thorne’s stories provoke contemplation of the technological advances that might appear in the “Odds and Ends” section of your local Sunday paper. A mouse with the capability to grow a human ear on its back is scientific fact… why not, then, as in “Lefty,” might a pig not be forced to perform a similar feat with a human leg?
Like many of Thorne’s pieces, the twist to this particular story, which might leave adolescent readers wondering about the genus of the mystery meat in their school cafeteria, is written with tongue planted firmly in cheek. However, some of the tales have far more serious overtones. The relationship between robot and man is perhaps the most recurring theme in this collection, with the most memorable treatment, “Godlike,” telling the tale of a millionaire and his robot setting up home on an island with only “savages” for company. The “civilized” man takes great pleasure in using the gifts of technology to awe the natives, only to realize too late that it is not him they have taken as their god.
Perhaps the most timely story, however, is “Deviant,” newly added for the book’s reprinting and frighteningly well-timed, with the book going to press at the moment of the highly publicized youth riots in France. In this tale, which draws on Asimov’s laws of robotics, a prejudiced engineer modifies the programming of some specialised robots to redefine humanity and produces a whole new level of racial profiling. In this tale, Thorne’s talent makes itself most evident. Like the rest of the collection, the piece puts a new – and very pleasing – twist on the old practice of stories “ripped from the headlines.”

Hannah Emery, NJ