A Better Way to Die: The Collected Short Stories

Jonathan Hamilton #1-4

by Paul Cornell, John Scalzi (Introduction)

Paul Cornell has written Doctor Who for the BBC, Batman & Robin for DC, and Wolverine for Marvel. He has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, the Eagle Award for his comics, and shares a Writer’s Guild Award for television. He is one of only two people to be Hugo Award nominated for all three media.

A Better Way to Die is his first ever short story collection, providing a comprehensive overview of his work. Featured here are both his contributions to George RR Martin’s Wildcards series and all the Jonathan Hamilton stories, including “One of Our Bastards is Missing”, shortlisted for the Hugo Award in 2010, and “A Better Way to Die”, winner of a BSFA Award in 2011.

With an introduction by John Scalzi, the eBook edition contains 21 stories, representing almost all of Paul's published short fiction to date.

1.Introduction by John Scalzi
2.Sunflower Pump
3.The Greys
4.The Deer Stalker
5.Horror Story
6.Michael Laurits is: DROWNING
7.Global Collider Generation: an Idyll
8.Secret Identity
9.The Occurrence at Slocombe Priory
10.A Map of Lychford
11.The Sensible Folly
12.More (Wild Cards)
13.The Elephant in the Room (Wild Cards)
14.A New Arrival at the House of Love
15.The Ghosts of Christmas
16.Tom
17.Ramesses on the Frontier
18.Zeta Reticuli
19.Catherine Drewe
20.One of our Bastards is Missing
21.The Copenhagen Interpretation
22.A Better Way to Die

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Ebooks

314 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 3, 2015

About the author

Paul Cornell is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, comics and television. He's been Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, and the Eagle Award for his comics. He's the writer of Saucer Country for Vertigo, Demon Knights for DC, and has written for the Doctor Who TV series. His new urban fantasy novel is London Falling, out from Tor on December 6th.

via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...

Reviews

[Raj · Rating 2 out of 5]

In his introduction, John Scalzi claims that Paul Cornell is, possibly, the nicest man in science fiction. I've only met the chap once or twice, but from those, and from Twitter, I wouldn't argue the proposition. That makes it difficult to come out and say that I didn't really enjoy much of this collection. Although Cornell has written some cracking Doctor Who, this volume, as well as my reading of the first of his Shadow Police series and his Lychford books suggest that his personal style doesn't work for me. He seems to write from a dark place, something which comes out moreso in his short fiction. The stories in this collection are set in chronological order (with the Hamilton stories sorted at the end), so we can see his style and his writing develop.

The early stories, The Deer Stalker, Michael Laurits is: DROWNING and Global Collider Generation: An Idyll feel quite experimental, and I struggled to understand a lot of them; The Sensible Folly was a lot more fun, as were the two Wild Cards stories (Cornell's contribution to George R. R. Martin's shared universe). The Ghosts of Christmas felt really bleak all the way through and I really struggled to read that story.

The Hamilton stories were interesting because they start out almost as James Bond pastiche, in a world where Newton's musings took him in a very different direction, where the great powers of the 19th century have survived and still play their Great Game, while maintaining a "balance" to avoid all-out war. It feels like these stories in particular get very dark as they go on. Hamilton is a complex character, trapped by ties of loyalty and love in a very cruel world. It's easy to feel sympathy for him, and even what he does, and still be appalled at his world.

An interesting collection, with a strong authorial voice. Read if you enjoy going to dark places, but not really to my taste.

[Alex Sarll]

A collection taking in Cornell's fiction from the past two decades; everything is here from work in the shared Wild Cards and Weerde worlds, to a booklet for a local historical landmark (the only omission I noticed was his Doctor Who shorts). Inevitably, some stories are better than others; equally inevitably, opinions will vary as to which ones. For me, the collision of MR James' world with some rather less dusty ghost-hunters was painful, but I'm sure others will find it hilarious. Similarly, where I felt 'Tom' was beautiful and intriguing, not everyone will be able to get past the giant alien penis with which it opens. Still, I suspect we can all agree that writing about two entirely different small English towns with occult topography, both called Lychford, looks like carelessness. The book's final quarter comprises four linked tales of Jonathan Hamilton, a Bond-style deniable asset from another Britain where Newton noticed something very different in the orchard on that fateful day; the title story works much better in this context than when I read it first in George RR Martin's Rogues anthology. An explanatory note (I love when collections include these with each story) shares the gloss that Hamilton is Cornell's way of talking about the vexed business of masculinity, but there's a lot here too about the tangled nature of British patriotism, a recurring Cornell theme. And one which intertwines with perhaps his defining interest: empathy for the apparently other. For all its horrors, this is a profoundly humane collection.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always a little ambivalent about tackling a new book of short stories: there's inevitably going to be a range of topics and styles which means that it's likely I'll find some stories I enjoy but equally likely that I'll find some that appeal less. This is just the same with this collection of the collected short stories from Paul Cornell's career.

In the end, I suppose, it's about where the balance falls. While there were a few stories in this volume that I found a little meh there were none I found unreadable and many that were highly entertaining and compelling. There are enough top-notch stories here that it feels wrong to pick any out - and favourites will, in any case, vary from reader to reader - but I could point to the eerie and vaguely unsettling "The Ghosts of Christmas", an amusing vignette in the style of M.R. James, the two tales set in G.R.R. Martin's Wild Cards universe, and the four Jonathan Hamilton tales that end the book.

So, overall a fine old read and well worth the occasional hiccup along the way!

[Andy Hickman · Rating 3 out of 5]

“A BETTER WAY TO DIE” by Paul Cornell ***
Hamilton must seek to survive a life-or-death struggle with an opponent who is as deadly as he is – his body double.

“The idea of parts of the body public fighting each other was like the idea of a man's punching himself in the face. It was a physical blasphemy that suited this era as an index of how far it had all gone.”
- - -

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not even get through it as short as it is

[Carrie Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rogues Anthology

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

Paul Cornell's writing is clever but vague, it leaves the reader to fill in the blanks about details, mysteries, plots or endings. Not sure if I'm a fan.

[Runalong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great mix of short stories covering parenthood, Alternate World secret agents and tributes to MR James. Creepy, hopeful and everything in between - hopefully more to follow

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

The earlier stories felt like the early works of a writer who gets better with time, and then the later stories in the collection bored me so I didn't finish.

[Phil Nicolle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cornell wrote two of my favorite Dr Who novels, however his books, or at least this book, is definitely not for me.

[Steve Markwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Obviously the best way to solve a dimension hopping time travel paradox is to simply shoot your younger self...poof, problem eliminated