Tearing Down Tuesday -- Steven Francis Murphy (Interzone 210)

Plot
A stigmatised young man in a post-holocaust small town has to face his demons in order to raise enough money to save the robot he loves.

What I liked
I enjoy post-holocaust stories. I like stories where technology doesn't work properly. There appears to be a shortage of petrol. Robots have AI, but they are from pre-holocaust times and need to be patched up again and again.

Kyle, the viewpoint character, is easy to like. The values of his community make him an outcast, but our values make him someone who has a right to our compassion.

The story challenged me, because I have a horrible feeling that perhaps the values of Circeville might not be so different to our own.

What I learnt
The holocaust appears to have been caused by a singularity -- I'm not sure what a singularity is -- my understanding is that it's the point at which something stops being well-behaved.

Failing technology conveys a lot more information about the world than technology that works.

A stigmatised outcast character can look into and comment on society.

I feel as if the town name Circeville has some significance, but I can't imagine what. Circe is the sorceress in the Odyssey who turns me into pigs, and detains Odysseus as her lover. I don't see the relevance, unless it's to do with small town mentality and denial of evils in our midst. It could also be something to do with the robot and Kyle sticking around in a place (geographical and psychological) they hate because they love each other. I might be missing something here, but I would be inclined not to use loaded place names without a very good reason, as they are a distraction.

Much of the dialogue is untagged (lacking 'he said' etc) -- this is a sign of a masterly writer, I think. It shows you have confidence in your character's voices.

This story deals with murder and sexual assault -- in both cases, the author leaves Kyle to go there by himself, returning at the end of the scene. There are good reasons for doing this:
1. The incidents are part of something the viewpoint character hates and fears about himself.
2. It would be impossible to write the scenes without sensationalising them. For my part, I would be afraid that someone might get off on such a scene. I would be afraid of colluding in someone's violent fantasies, perhaps normalising their feelings. I feel that a writer has a responsibility not to do this. But then again, exploring these themes could illuminate the wrongness of violence for someone.
3. Nothing that I can write will be as horrific as what a reader can imagine, or will imagine that they are avoiding imagining.

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