In Onyx’s head there is something, not quite a picture and yet an evocation. The vats, the smell, the noise. She acknowledges a dim awareness of this place even though previously she had not considered anything beyond the apartments, the stairs and the Linear Gallery. Memory returns in a moment of vertigo.

Absorbing and re-purposing the influences of J.G. Ballard and, in this case, Moorcock’s Dancers at the end of Time, Gary Budgen has conjured a haunting, claustrophobic and somewhat filmic post-apocalyptic scenario that is full of role play, suggestion, and distorting reflections. The author’s concern is time and one of its consequences – mortality. At times, Fragments of Onyx is deliberately uncomfortable reading but what are we as humans if we are not challenged by our artworks? Chilling and memorable, Gary Budgen is set to be the next great British Slipstream writer. – Allen Ashley, British Fantasy Society President Elect

30pp