From the inanimate to animals extant and extinct, Chris Flynn’s story collection, HERE BE LEVIATHANS is a potpourri of the playful and the poignant, featuring platypus and primates, pestilence and plague, the polyamourous and the polymorphous.
An ennead of narratives, the first story begins “I ate a kid called Ash Tremblay yesterday.” It’s an imperative aperitif from the perspective of a Grizzly who has had a gutful of entitled humans with no regard to the natural environment. It’s ‘a grin and bear it’ blast, with a a consummation devoutly to be wished: “what wonders might our species achieve together if further discussion were possible. We could redefine compassion and see the world anew.”
Sit comfortably with your tray in the upright position for 22F, narrated by an airline seat in an ill fated flight, a story that will have you fastening your seat belts.
MONOTREME has a platypus rescuing a couple of backpackers from the jaws of an alpha croc giving them sanctuary and an insight into duck bill domesticity.
The title story, HERE BE LEVIATHANS, is heir apparent to Flynn’s fantastic novel, Mammoth, a cautionary tale about synthetic biology and the resurrection of extinct species linked to the nauseating need for nostalgia in numbskulled people of privilege wanting to return to the primitive.
Steering a course into the downright spooky is the prescient, THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, a viral pandemic story, a horror show set at sea, scary and sobering.
ALAS, POOR YORICK spins a story about a simian space racer, Albert 6, a rhesus macaque astronaut, a pioneer primate propelled into the void in preparation for sending people. An inter species, interstellar fiction based on fact.
After this flight of fancy, Flynn plummets back to earth with SHOT DOWN IN FLAMES, a Thea Astley inspired story, followed by a beautiful saga narrated by a motel room chronicling the trajectory of a married couple from honeymoon to the title, A BEAUTIFUL AND UNEXPECTED TURN.
Flynn finishes with KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE, a seedy stream of consciousnesses set in a netherworld nightmare.
Here Be Leviathans by Chris Flynn (University of Queensland Press $32.99)
