Transported

By Tim Jones (Random House, RRP $27.99)

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Reviews: General fiction

Gravel Roads The Land of Painted Caves Major Pettigrew's Last Stand The Good Daughters Lovers in the Age of Indifference The Lotus Eaters La Rochelle's Road The Raven's Heart The Brave The Map of True Places

The originality, gentle humour and sheer variety in this collection makes it clear why former Southlander Tim Jones was long-listed for the 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award alongside established New Zealand writers Elizabeth Smither and Witi Ihimaera and Sue Orr.

The easy blending of genres and assured writing means stories like The New Neighbour, with its satirical take on an insular kiwi community's reaction to new immigrants, has appeal beyond its science fiction origins.

There is an amused and kindly glow to the telling, making the commentary all the more pointed.

Several stories will be especially entertaining to Southlanders.

Homestay is narrated from the perspective of a member of an extra-terrestrial team who drop into Gore on fabulous wings, staying with the extended McKenzie family in a muddy, manure-deep, post-oil agricultural society.

The thirst for new experiences is universal, the narrator comments drily, as team members and hosts examine each other at intimate quarters.

The heavy irony of corporate team-building gamesmanship at the heart of Best Practice will satisfy the prejudices of any cynic, in its portrayal of greed and greenwash, corporate image and exploitative human resource mismanagement.

Many stories reflect Jones' interest in climate change and consequent catastrophic scenarios.

Wellington will never be the same after reading The Wadestown Shore, where the narrator goes fishing and fossicking among the drowned office blocks, in a society rigidly ruled by the Reconstruction Authority.

Other jokes may be a little more obscure to some, like the imagined visit M Foucault to a Southland dairy farm, where his host, Wayne, expounds on the difficulties facing the rural intellectual and the neighbours enquire, "What do you do for a crust" ? But for every story like this, with its literary in-joke, there's another of a hapless young man with real-world struggles with romance or physical fears, or just the nostalgic recall of boyhood hero worship of a dashing racing car driver.

The mix is clever and compelling, and though there may not be much riotous laughing out loud, there's many a quiet chuckle.

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