The Volkhova Perplex by Ashley Stokes

Published in AT THE LIGHTHOUSE, a new anthology in 2023 edited by Sophie Essex and published by Eibonvale Press HERE.

Reviewed as part of my ‘Dessemination’ project HERE

My previous reviews of Ashley Stokes are linked HERE.

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“From behind we see Syzygy gently nudge Star with her elbow.”

Even having just re-watched yesterday a ‘realler’  colourised version of the first Daleks’ shaky cardboard and silver showing in 1963 that I originally saw live in fuzzy black and white when  it was first broadcast, I do not know how to approach reviewing this first person plural referenced, indeed multi-referenced  ‘story’ of the eponymous TV serial’s ouroboros of a time warp creating for the first time the Lighthouse in a new Area X as seen  by a narrator who was an obsessive fan to the extent of blighting his subsequent life or altering what happens in the backdrop history in the 1970s to the extent of the serial’s existence at all being in question when…. ah, I am aging and agog with both its setting on the east coast where I live and the previously invisible lighthouse that I can now see from my window. I sense this is a significant work, sparking off with a fazy Sapphire and Steel.