Reviewed by Robert Runté
I try to cover as much of the range of Canadian speculative fiction as I can, reading across its many subgenres. Zebra Meridian and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Geoffrey Cole which one could loosely classify as clifi, since most of these stories contain some element of environmental erosion. Stylistically, however, these narratives range from fantasy to slipstream to outright horror, and so Cole’s Zebra Meridian collection represents many of the current trends in speculative fiction.
I also try to include a mixture of books from the big five, regional publishers, and small presses, as well as from the best self-published. Stelliform Press is new to me, but if Zebra Meridian is any indication, a small publisher deserving of our attention.
The title story, “Zebra Meridian”, is Cole’s most straightforward narrative, which is to say, an odd blend of clifi, classic Italian movies, and the intersectionality of race, class and gender. Our heroine is torn between the man she loves and the need to protect her family. The action is set against a background of callous factory owners and an implicit critique of carbon capture. It is a fast-paced story that assures us that misogyny will remain unchanged even two hundred years from now.
At the other end of the stylistic spectrum, we have “’Ti Pouce in Fergetitland” set in a sufficiently distant future that environment, genetics, and language have been warped into near-unrecognizability. Cole makes readers work to navigate the surreal text, but this is my favourite story in the collection. The two characters (or eight, depending on one’s point of view) undertake an epic journey to escape ecological collapse and the tyranny of their subsequent dependence on handouts.
“Today I will secure enough vittles for the journey across Fergetitland.”
“To what place?” we said.
“Think of any place,” said he, and we did. “That place is better than here.”
At this slipstream end of the continuum, we also find “The Way of the Shrike,” a coming-of-age story about youthful crushes, puppeteers, and. . . Impaling. Cole completely nails what it feels like to be a rebellious 13-year-old in this allegory about societal expectations verses pursuing an artistic life.
And then there’s “Two from the Field, Two From the Mill” which combines women’s hockey, the Rapture, and our deep longing for dogs. Dogs, Cole suggests, are great; people are problematic.
“Billy Ray’s Small Appliance Rehabilitation” mixes fundamentalism, memory, and obsession.
More traditional narratives include:
“On the Many Uses of Cedar” is set in an 1895 logging camp where every day is like every other. Cole throws together deforestation and the plight of isolated pioneer women to create a credible Groundhog Day remake.
“The River of Sons” is set in WWI in an alternate universe of sorcery, demons, and centaurs. War is always hell, though, so the German occupation of Belgium was never going to end well.
“Song of Mary” addresses ecological collapse in a generational colony ship; “Cradle and Ume” deals with ecological collapse in the closed environment of a post-human civilization.
“Captured Carbon” is a cross-over into horror, though not exactly the zombie movie one might expect from:
“Didn’t the news say she died in the explosion?”
“If she did, she got better.”
The horror genre peaks, however, in “Desolation Sounds”, an examination of trauma’s aftermath. The story is brilliantly done, but I am a bigger fan of sleeping soundly than of horror, so part of me wishes I had skipped this one.
If there is a common characteristic to all these tales, it is Cole’s ability to take two or three seemingly unrelated ideas and mash them together to produce a satisfying synthesis greater than the sum of its parts. The multiple Italian movie references in “Zebra Meridian”, for example, must seem a bit random to anyone too young to remember those specific scenes, but it would be a much poorer story without them. By introducing this subtheme of how art influences life, Cole adds depth to both the setting and the characterization. The inclusion of these references serves to emphasize that while the heroine has access to longstanding cultural expectations of an idealized romance and marriage, the reality remains elusive. The references connect our history to her story, and thus, her story to our present.
Similarly, Cole is perhaps more acutely aware of the importance of setting than most. The environments in which his protagonists find themselves are inevitably both a driver for the story and a limitation on what his characters can achieve. In the few stories not immediately climate related, the environments of war, of capitalism, of patriarchy, continue to dominate and oppress. None of Cole’s characters would be who they are without their history in that specific setting. World-building is of course important in all speculative-fiction, but Cole’s world-building is somehow more personal and immediate. Again, it is Cole’s habit of focusing on seemingly disparate elements that allows him to deconstruct the familiar to create something strange yet emotionally recognizable.
There is some meaty content here, well worth purchasing the collection. Recommended.
Zebra Meridian is published by Stelliform Press.
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