Victoria Hayward’s short but razor-sharp story Bone Armour couldn’t be more suited to Grimdark Magazine (it’s available in issue 30) if it tried, setting its stall out early with mention of Bonecutters and ‘cadaver grinding facilities’ before getting really dark. Told via a series of written reports, it details Warrant-Officer Tamoh’s pursuit of a worker gone rogue and suspected of impeding the ‘war effort’. As Tamoh follows Meret’s trail through the vast manufactory dedicated to the production of bone armour, from crowded Habitation Zones to empty transport hubs, the net gradually closes in even as the danger Meret poses becomes increasingly clear.
As Tamoh’s reports chart the progress of their mission, each one reveals a little more of what’s happened and what it means, alongside a few more grim but valuable details of this darkly compelling world, building up a picture that grows from strange to sinister to crushingly bleak. In a very short space of time Hayward does a lot of clever world building, evoking familiar dystopian landmarks like 40k or 2000AD while creating something fresh and interesting (and in places genuinely unpleasant) in its own right. The gradual dawning of understanding is really the point of the story so to say much more would risk spoilers, but suffice to say this is a world of grand, faceless, institutionalised cruelty which seems outlandish at first but worryingly believable at length.
This is short even as short stories go, but it’s smart and neatly executed, making the most of its constraints and not trying to do too much. Instead, through a judicious application of subtle details and a clever use of structure it gives the reader just enough information to grasp the cruel, compelling truth of both the narrative and the setting. It’s all just really cleverly done, not least the way the arc of the plot matches the process the reader goes through, from questioning to recognition to stomach-churning understanding (thinking “Why…oh. Oh!”). As short, thought-provoking standalone science fiction stories go, they don’t come much more darkly satisfying than this.
See also: other reviews and interviews featuring Victoria Hayward.
You can find Bone Armour (alongside several other short stories) in Grimdark Magazine issue 30. Check out the links below* to buy your copy:
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