A real-time review by Paulo Brito.
Glaikit, mockit, droukit, drouthy, couthy, scunner, thrawn – the Scots language is rich with words too gallus not to glory in, dialect terms that deserve better than to be boxed away as precious oddities. Here we’ve collected some of the strangest writers of Scottish descent to bring these terms to life – that’s Scottish by heritage or residence, adoption or initiation…
An anthology is only a good anthology if the stories that comprise it are balanced. If the quality of each story is more alternate than the electric charge, that anthology loses its value. And to achieve a uniform quality depends on both the writers / stories chosen as the theme that unites them. “Caledonia Dreamin’ – Strange Fiction of Scottish Descent“, edited by Hal Duncan and Chris Kelso, has a very interesting and challenging premise (“Our aim here has been to mine the language for its wealth, tasking writers to draw out of it whatever gem of a word caught their eye and to build a story around it in celebration, to stake a place for these words in the wider culture, beyond their usual confines.” page 11), but which may prove to be complicated to attain such uniformity.
“Caledonia Dreamin’ – Strange Fiction of Scottish Descent” it was published by Eibonvale Press.
I features stories by: Neil Williamson, Wendy Muzlanova, Brian Milton, T.J. Berg, Douglas Thompson, Preston Grassman, Tom Bradley, Rob McClure Smith, Angus McAllister, Nick Mamatas, Gavin Grant, Phil Raines, Kirsty Logan, David McGroarty, Gio Clairval, Tim Jarvis and Anna Tambour.
I will do a real-time review of this book – yes I am crazy.
If I can get do a review 10% similar to one of Des Lewis I will be a very happy person. I know that will be a very hard objective to accomplish; I already say that I live surround by madness?
This real-time review will appear, as and when I read it, in the thought stream found below or by clicking on the title of this post.
The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Reviews 
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