Fables from the Fountain [Kindle Edition]

This was an interesting themed anthology, based around a group of people telling stories in the kind of pub I wish was MY local... It is based on Arthur C Clarke's Tales From The White Hart, and indeed the last story by Adam Roberts has some fun with several other Clarke tales.

What's nice about the book is that, despite the many different authors, each story is linked by being set in the same location, and gradually the reader gets a real sense of The Fountain, its staff, and its patrons. The individual stories all share a light-hearted, almost whimsical tone, defiantly old-fashioned - like the pub itself. There's not a bad one among them, but particular favourites of mine were 'Transients' by Stephen Baxter, "And Weep Like Alexander" by Neil Gaiman (on typically fine form), and "Book Wurms" by Andy West.

This is the kind of anthology that as a reader I both love and hate - love because it's introduced me to many new authors; hate because I'll be spending yet more money on buying books by those newly discovered authors.

This is an intriguing book, a collection of short SF stories written as a tribute to Arthur C Clarke's Tales from the White Hart which I have to confess I haven't read (yet). The set up is good - a bunch of academics and SF writers get together every Tuesday night in the eponymous Fountain, a traditional pub in Holburn, London (one story is told in a similar Edinburgh setting), that's oddly difficult to find, and swap stories. There is a varied cast of fictional storytellers, overlapping fuzzily with the real SF authors who wrote each tale, and it's left pleasingly unclear whether the "I" who narrates most of the stories (ie as the listener who hears the tales) is the same person or whether, as the storyteller of the week rotates, so does the "listener".

The book contains stories by Ian Whates, Stephen Baxter ("Transients" - my personal favourite, with a thought provoking account of alien life), Ian Watson, Paul Graham Raven, James Lovegrove, Neil Gaiman, Colin Bruce, Charles Stross, Liz William, Eric Brown, Steve Longworth ("The Cyberseeds - probably the funniest, with a punning payoff that you may see coming but which nevertheless is just so right) Henry Gee, Andy West, David Langford, Andrew J Wilson, Peter Crowther, Tom Hunter and Adam Roberts.

As with most collections of this sort, it would be invidious to comment on the qualities of individual stories since their approach and content vary so widely. They are all fairly short, puns and word play abound and I think everyone will find something here to like, and for me, they were all of a good standard - if I was forced rate them individually I'd have said there were one or two ***, most **** and a couple of *****. The only feature that detracted slightly, perhaps, for me, was the layering - A tells a story in the Fountain that was recounted to her by B who was describing something that happened to C. But that's inevitable in this sort of "framed" collection, indeed overall I think the "framing" adds so much to the atmosphere of the collection that a little confusion in who is telling what story isn't a big problem.

A good way to sample these authors' work if you hadn't already.

Fables From the Fountain is a collection of stories that pays homage to the writing of Arthur C. Clarke. The stories are all set in a fictitious pub (the Fountain) and each story finds a group of regulars, with the occasional visiting `irregular', gathering for pint and a story.

I really enjoyed this book. Each story is interesting in its own right, but they are all coordinated in such a way that they seem to overlap and mingle. It feels just like a lively conversation with friends in a friendly local pub. Each story contains familiar landmarks - the pub itself, the "old bodger" ale, and a Polish barmaid named Bogna. You could read this book for the atmosphere as much as for the stories.

Anyone who has read Clarke's story The Nine Billion Names of God will probably remember the ending ("overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out"). In a very entertaining riff on this classic, Adam Roberts picks up the theme of stars going out and... well, I don't want to spoil it for you, but I had to grin at Robert's explanation of this unlikely scenario. In fact I grinned through most of this book, enjoying the light-hearted treatment of interesting though sometimes nerdy sci-fi themes.

The Fountain might be an old-fashioned pub, but the authors have not been shy with modern touches. Alongside pump handles and damp bar-mats there are smart phones, twitter and for the hard-core nerds there's even a mention of bioperl. It's as if these stories were written specifically to entertain me, or someone like me.

If I have one criticism it is that some of the stories seem to end rather abruptly, although if I'm honest this probably reflects my disappointment as each story ended rather than any fault in their construction. (Note to self - less gobbling, more savouring.)

One final note for Kindle readers - unlike many books where the Kindle edition is clearly an afterthought, this edition takes full advantage of navigation features - you can flip between stories and you can jump to notes on each author. I wish more Kindle editions were this well presented.