CONTENTS MAY UNSETTLE BY DAVID COURT (BOOK REVIEW)

28/5/2021

David Court has what could be best described as a gift for storytelling, you know what I mean, their prose is instantly relatable, easy to get into, yet bloody challenging to get out of, you will find yourself constantly just saying one more story before I put the book down.

CONTENTS MAY UNSETTLE BY DAVID COURT

Usually, when I see a sign stating that "Contents May (Un)Settle", I get a little wary, as that's just a thing they stick on boxes to make us think that the half-filled packaging isn't just more empty air than a product.

In writing terms, it's like when you use double spaced lines, and a font way too big for the purpose to make it look like the 300 odd paged book you are reading is more extensive than it is. Hey, we have all tried it at one point in our lives; hell, I'm sure even some of David J Court's high school essays have used this ploy to fill out the ten-page book report. However, this might be all hearsay and conjecture on my part, and we will let the lawyers duke it out in court.

Whether or not David has done this in his youth is a moot point, as it is clear from reading his latest collection Contents May Unsettle, that David has employed none of these tactics to create this outstanding short story (with one novella and a handful of poems) collection.

Contents May Unsettle comes in at 357 pages of some of the most stylistically diverse and satisfyingly good single-author collections that I have had the pleasure of reading. David Court has what could be best described as a gift for storytelling, you know what I mean, their prose is instantly relatable, easy to get into, yet bloody challenging to get out of, you will find yourself constantly just saying one more story before I put the book down.

Here are some of my favourites of the collection.

There is a distinct "Britishness" to his style of writing; many of the stories have a deep vein of dark self-effacing humour that the British are so adept at producing, while others will invoke that sense of quiet foreboding dread, so often found in such quintessentially shows such as The Hammer House of Horror, or Tales of the Unexpected.

A chilling and brutal war story kicks off this collection; Entanglement is a powerful and fast-paced story that effectively combines thrilling action sequences with a chilling and clever use of a sadly underused monster. I particularly enjoyed how Court used the old fairy tale warning of never taking what isn't yours to take to a terrifying conclusion.

Isol -8 and a later story that I will get later are a wonderfully wry wink at the perils of writing and the dangers of looking for a gift horse in the mouth. It is a clever dig at those publishers that seems too good to be true. The take-home message of the storey is there is nothing to compare to good old fashioned hard work and perseverance.

PowerTrip is a fun and comedic look at office politics and work friendships in the face of an alien invasion. However, the dynamics between the characters and the snappy dialogue make me wonder who Clive and Not-Eric were based on.

"There are eleven people in this bar, and three of them are me" one of my favourite opening lines in this collection, for perhaps my favourite story, or at least the one story I would love to read more off in terms of further adventures within its universe. Brother, can you Spare a Paradigm, is, and stay with me on this, one of those Private Eyes versus the occult/supernatural stories. Quiet down at the back, I can hear you from here, yes I know they are gazillions of those types of stories out there, and so many of them are tired, lazy and dull, but bear with me. This one is special, and it has everything you could ever want in one of these stories. So come on, David, give us more.

Microcosm, Macrocosm, is a tale of two halves, well not quite two halves as it goes south well before the halfway point, but you get what I mean. Initially, this story sounds like it will be a piece of Red Dwarf fanfic, and as someone who was never really got Red Dwarf, this appeared to be the first story that I might not enjoy in this collection. Hell, it's set on a vast interstellar ship with cats roaming around while the crew are held in status. I spent the first few pages waiting for a wise-cracking cat to slide onto the page. Thankfully, Court takes this story down a much darker path to deliver a dangerous and deadly look at the fragility of humanity and the veneer of civilisation. Be warned if acts of animal cruelty trigger you; this story might not be for you. The author doesn't revel in it, and they are presented with a clinical matter of fact rather than in an overly descriptive manner.

12 Drummers Drumming is not a sweet and loving tale of Christmas wine and carols. Instead, we have a clever and inspired take on an apocalypse story. Instead of some zombie outbreak, we have a world gone crazy when a mysterious frequency causes the vast proportion of the population to become semi-mindless monsters. Court's use of a deaf protagonist as the hero of the story is a smart move, and his description of a post-apocalyptic world has a strong sense of reality. This tense story barrels along towards a conclusion that is both unexpected and perfect for this unusual take on a tired trope.

To Mnemosyne, a Daughter is the longest story in this collection and probably the most straightforward in stylistic terms and narrative style. There is no deep vein of dark humour here or a clever twisting of an old trope. Instead, what we have here is an intense and brooding tale of haunting, obsession, and breakdown of a writer crushed by the weight of writer's block. I still remember watching shows like Hammer House of Horror as a kid, and those quiet tales of supernatural terror, set in some country manor house, or with a person slightly out of place in their surroundings always gave me the creeps more than more gory ones. To Mnemosyne, a Daughter captures that same sense of existential dread. Court delivers a compelling slow-burn ghost story that uses an increasing sense of anxiety and isolation to give this tale a genuinely unsettling feel.

Which is as far away as you could get, in terms of style and tone, with the following story. You Only Live Thrice is a brilliantly funny dig at the spy movie genre. Court had a great time writing this parody of James Bond, from the perils and pitfalls of being an aged spy or supervillain to the sidesplitting discussion of how the supervillains remember our hero, " He used to seem... more Scottish", to the thoughtful discourse on the futility of being a supervillain, compared to how rich and famous they would have been if only they used their intellect for good.

You Only Live Thrice is a hilarious love letter to the greatest spy of all time, with a wonderfully heartwarming conclusion.

The final story of the collection is an inspired piece of editorial work, as it links back to the first story with it being another war based tale. This time we encounter Court's version of a super soldier and the morality of having a weapon that could destroy the enemy army but still rely on the ordinary troops to do all of the grunt work. That is until the enemy develops their superpowered soldier. There is a real Tales of the Unexpected ending to this story, and the collection ends as it started on a very high note.

Contents May Unsettle accomplishes the rarest of things in having a consistently high level of stories throughout its length. I usually find myself skimming over one or two stories in collections. However, Contents May Unsettle had me gripped from the very first page. Helped in many ways by David Court's understanding of the rules of the genre, which enabled him to present stories that, while at firsthand, appear to be familiar, but as you embrace each story, you discover that he has embellished them with his own unique voice. You get that sly grin when you understand that you are reading something from a very talented writer slides across your face; you know that you are for a hell of a good time within this book.

Contents May Unsettle, so be sure not to leave this one sitting on the shelf for too long; you'll only curse yourself if you do.

Contents May Unsettle by David Court

The fourth collection of prose by David Court, author of "The Shadow Cast by the World", "Forever and Ever, Armageddon" and "Scenes of Mild Peril".. Features twenty tales of madness and obsession, treachery, super-heroics and apocalyptic dystopias.