I just started reading Sisters of Rail at https://crashsnowdon.com/fiction/sisters-of-rail/. Love how open and expansive the writing is, painting a vivid picture of a strange family living strange lives and yet leaving so much to the imagination of the reader.
All told by the main protagonist, I canʼt wait to find out what the implied misdemeanours are that she gets up to.
Iʼm going to pace myself at a chapter per month, and so looking forward to Chapter 2!
Continues the first-person exploration of a magical world, with the introduction of a mysterious stranger. The writing continues to be lovely: it puts across with precision the structure of the scenes, but leaves so much fleshing-out to the imagination you almost feel like you are constructing a version of the story specially for you. Eager to read the next chapter....
Should also add: There is a sinister and foreboding reference to a local railway line. Iʼm starting to feel a tension in the air!
Gentle, creamy-smooth description of an evening in the household of the large young family of a poor farmer with high morals and sweet-sour sibling banter.
The chapter is, to be fair, a slow burner, which does nothing to advance the story other than to cement the domesticated, God-fearing, almost pre-ordained lives of some children who, one gets the impression, are about to have their lives turned upside-down. This foreboding is finally promoted with the very last sentence, which gently tells us, without excessive dramatics, something untoward is definitely afoot.
This is my favorite online serialisation at the moment, with beautiful prose and a real air of mystery. I wish it was a tad more expedient, but it is elegantly suspenseful for its slow draw.
In a break away from the homestead, we get to spend an evening out with the family head and find out what his occupational patrols are about. So this chapter introduces two more (presumably) main characters into the plot, and we have a quarrelsome threesome wont to taste adventure in life, but finding only moments of mild slapstick and faux authoritarianism.
It turns out they are looking for demons around the small town, despite there not having been an incident in over a hundred years; the implications being that when such last occurred, it was very, very nasty, and casts a pall of suppressive, nascent terror over the township who otherwise enjoy idyllic, simple lives.
The story continues to create and cement wonderfully intriguing but intrinsically flawed characters, building strong yet abrasive relationships between them, and, very slowly, building an aura of foreboding suspense in the place.
Chapter 5 picks up where the interlude left off and transforms it into a critical juncture with some second-hand recounting of the succeeding events. It is an interesting way to break the structure of the work, and allows for opposing personalities to be juxtaposed and examined in a tight space, which turns out to be very funny in places.
I love this work!
However, it tries too hard to describe events in detail, and has the reader performing mental contortions to grasp the physics and timings (which seem a little implausible), in contrast to the bookʼs generally more laid-back approach giving the reader room to make their own visualizations.
It does still leave a mystery as to what actually caused the events of the patrol, and confusion as to whether one of the trio died in the rescue. Did he succeed alone in his attempt to stop the train, or was there some divine intervention?
Chapter six directly continues its predecessor with intensely clever writing: a discourse so constructed as to build tension and drip-feed the secrets connivingly hidden underneath the previous two installments. A change of pace (again), and a change in the characterizations as the protagonists wise up to the reality of the new normal.
The exposition reverts to the earlier style of giving just enough that the reader is free to fill in details by their own imagination, but not lacking any clarity in the important points needed for progression of the story.
We are embroiled in a different universe now, and the next part of this book is wide open; I’m so looking forward to see what unpredictability unfolds next. Of all the serials I’m reading, this is by far the best, most intelligent writing. It’s great!
Another day in the life of the buttery-smooth home garden family of blossoming children living at the edge of an idyllic hamlet dominated by its railway line, apprehensively waiting for the time a daughter gets an injured hand mended by some magician. It is revealed that the injury was a simple accident, which is disappointing as I had imagined up until now that it was the result of ill-conceived magic and part of the strange lore underpinning the text.
Ahead of this chapter is an interlude presenting a dream sequence, which can only be described as some author indulgence. It really serves no purpose and breaks the fourth wall as far as reading the story goes.
The chapter itself can also be considered pointless, by now. It illuminates the hopes and fears, and sibling rivalry within the family household. But we already know all that, by now. But the chapter does set up the next part of the work, and leaves the reader ready to learn new insights into this strange, but oh-so-nice, gentle world.
A very first-person narrative of seemingly random events, devoid of the usual lubricated chatter among the familiar family members. It puts the protagonist, Charity, in unusual territory, navigating the social codes of acquaintances of different lifestyles and expectations, even entitlements, to her own. The chapter serves to introduce some social order into the hitherto flat acceptance of strangers in this peaceful hamlet, and really bigs up the occasion of the healing of Charityʼs hand, while at the same time humbling Charity herself as a caring and practical person.
It is great how the texture of the writing matches the scenery and ambience of the subject matter. It feels like the work is starting to grow up now, and the writing feels like it is becoming more mainstream.