Tales of the Coming War, by Eric Stener Carlson

 " ... we all search for meaning -- to give our life purpose." 

9781912586615

Tartarus Press, 2025

253 pp

hardcover

(read earlier in March)

If you find that recently you've been a bundle of nerves given world events, do yourself a favor and do not read this book before trying to go to sleep. I started out doing that, as is my regular practice, and discovered that far from settling me down enough to conk out, this book had the opposite effect -- I found my thoughts swirling and I was beyond unsettled.  I gave up after two nights, pushing this book into my daytime reading where somehow it felt mentally more safe.  

Tales From the Coming War is a collection of stories that is difficult to pigeonhole.  Set against the backdrop of war, there are shades of science fiction, the supernatural, the eerie, and it is especially dark.   The first thing I noticed is that there are scenes from but no explanation behind the conflict anywhere throughout this book, but in the long run it's really not needed.   These stories zoom in on the very human experiences of people caught up in the collapse of the world as they know it; although scattered here and there throughout different parts of the globe, Carlson's characters tend to question or confront particular moments in their lives, searching for meaning and seeing things most clearly at the time when all is about to be lost, their stories often offering them a measure of freedom.   

Very briefly, one of the best stories in this volume, "Roses," clearly illustrates this idea, and begins with an older man in Greece receiving a letter from someone he knew in the past.  The letter writer has had a highly successful career and life, but now he writes to beg and offer a substantial amount of money for the older man's secret as to the "immunity" from the "wraiths" that have been decimating the population, the fate of which somehow the older man has escaped.   In his response, the older man sets forth his theories, first his insights into the nature of these things according to modern scientific thinking, and then something more "metaphorical."  As he explains his beliefs, he refers to the story of the "two roses" he learned when younger that takes him back into his childhood when the two were supposedly friends, but the reality was something altogether different.   "Death is Like a Slotted Spoon" is another excellent tale, in which two soliders find themselves stopping for a short break in the darknesss with the enemy all around them.  As they share a drink from a flask, one is reminded of the "first night he got pissed" as a teenager, living "in the middle of nowhere" with his parents and his twin sister, for whom he was responsible. He had to "shadow" her all the time because of her strange behavior, which gave him no time to be alone or to do anything he wanted.  All of that changes one night when his parents had gone out and left the two siblings on their own ...  "The Zig-Zag Line" is another fine story that offers the reflections of a young man from Australia who, as a child, "used to feel that just around the next corner of my life I'd find something magical, mysterious ... that would explain everything. (Why we're here, What life's all about.)"  Then came the war, changing the focus to survival.  The narrator had done everything asked of him by his father, who had always tried to pave the way for him in life, but when summoned home during the war, refused.  Instead, he decides that it might be time to "see Machu Picchu," an obsession he'd had since childhood.   As he notes, "If the whole world was going mad, if they were going to commit collective suicide, then, before the end came, I was finally going to see Machu Picchu."  As he had once read, "we all search for meaning -- to give our life purpose," and in this case, it's all about the journey.   The remainder of the stories here are all powerful, each in its own way.  

Another fine volume from Tartarus, the front dustjacket blurb of Tales From the Coming War reveals that "the characters in this collection face the last war the world will ever know," and I eventually came to realize that it's not the horrors that these people face that had me on edge but rather the way in which the author plunges the reader front and center into each story, making you feel like you're the one who's living through these times.   That, my friends, is powerful and emotional storytelling.   Enough said. 

Definitely recommended.