It’s a while since I’ve read anything by McAuley, so good to see this story.
As with Mercurio D. Rivera’s story earlier in the issue, it’s a short and chilling story, set up well with an intriguing introductory paragraph or two. Here McAuley introduces a tomb to an undead husband – and the tomb is clearly there due to a scientific experiment that went terribly, terribly wrong.
The narrator of the story is a science journalist, rueing the day she met up with an ex-student colleague and failed to read between the lines. He had been working in the London for a city firm, looking at just how science could help his firm do better in the financial market. And he pretty much succeeds, except, of course, that he opens a can of worms (not quite worms, as the title indicates)…
There’s no action in the story, merely the journo setting down what happened and her reflections on events, and what may be ahead, and it works well.
More from this issue here.
