Line #26 Literature/AngelDownSussex


1	"Angel Down, Sussex" is a short story by Creator/KimNewman in the ''Literature/DiogenesClub'' series. It is set in the 1920s, and features Catriona Kaye and Edwin Winthrop.
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3	Catriona and Edwin investigate a strange occurrence in the Sussex village of Angel Down, where strange lights are periodically seen in the sky and strange circles found in the fields, and fifty years ago a local girl named Rose Farrar disappeared into the air in a column of light. Now, a girl has appeared who seems to be Rose, still the same age as when she disappeared. Is she a [[ChangelingTale fairy changeling]]? Was she the victim of an AlienAbduction? [[AlienFairFolk Is there even a difference?]]
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5	!!This story contains examples of:
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7	* AlienFairFolk: The story deals with an extra-dimensional incursion in rural Britain in the 1920s, at precisely the point at which [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm human perception of such entities]] is beginning to shift from traditional occult/faerie mythology to twentieth-century UFO mythology.
8	* AliensStealCattle: A variation. One of the associated phenomena is a farmer finding his livestock dead and mutilated, but it's sheep instead of cattle.
9	* AnalProbing: Happens to Crowley, but since the alien visitors' appearance and actions vary depending on the expectations of the people they encounter, this really says more about him than about the aliens.
10	* AnimalAssassin: Catriona recalls how she and Edwin once found a black mamba in their picnic hamper while out punting. Bonus points in that it's implied that Literature/FuManchu, whose stories regularly used this trope, is the foe who had it placed there.
11	* ChangelingTale: When it becomes clear that the girl isn't human, Sir Arthur recalls the tales of fairies leaving a changeling in place of a human child and theorises that she's an example.
12	* CircleOfStandingStones: The field at the locus of the strange visitations used to have a stone circle standing in it; Rose's father had it removed and demolished after Rose disappeared from within it. The girl who might be Rose is found lying at the point that used to be the centre of the circle.
13	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The hook of the story is that it's full of echoes of later UFO mythology which the reader will recognise but which go past the characters. Apart from all the inherent similarities between fairy abduction and alien abduction myths, there's a strange visitor who switches between human and [[ReptilianConspiracy reptilian form]], TheGreys, an AnalProbing incident, unidentified flying objects, livestock mutilations, crop circles, and a visit by TheMenInBlack. The story ends with the characters pondering the possibility that the whole business will repeat in another few decades.
14	* EmpathicShapeshifter: The being at the centre of the events. Of three investigators who get a look at it, the [[Creator/ArthurConanDoyle starry-eyed spiritist from Edinburgh]] sees a fey changeling, the [[Creator/AleisterCrowley gleefully-depraved occultist]] sees a succubus which proceeds to anal-probe him, and the skeptic just sees it as a hoaxer. At the end someone wonders [[TheGreys what it might appear as]] to someone decades from now.
15	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Catriona's first scene, at the seance; her sardonic mental running commentary on the medium's technique, and then the way she allows the medium to dig herself into a hole before blowing the lid on the scam.
16	* GameOfChicken: Edwin blocks Crowley's escape by bringing his single-seater aircraft down on the road in front of Crowley's car and aiming for a head-on collision. He expects Crowley's driver to swerve first, but figures if worse comes to worst the propeller of the plane will do enough damage to the front of the car to stop it.
17	* TheGreys: Before her disappearance, Rose Farrar claimed to have met the beings responsible for the lights in the sky; she described them as a small, dressed in silvery clothes, with large black eyes and no noses to speak of. The girl who might be Rose describes them as bald with eyes like saucers and no noses. Crowley sees some similar creatures accompanying "Rose".
18	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Creator/AleisterCrowley and Sir Creator/ArthurConanDoyle also show up to investigate the incident.
19	* HolyBurnsEvil: Sir Arthur fends off a monster with a crucifix that happened to be to hand; it's implied that it worked because he expected it to, but might not have worked the same for someone else.
20	* ItWillNeverCatchOn: The story ends with Edwin confidently predicting that the world is entering a new age of rationality and that "the next time anything like this happens, we shall get to the bottom of it without panic or hysteria".
21	* MadameFortune: The phony medium Catriona exposes at the beginning of the story goes by the name of Mademoiselle Astarte.
22	* TheMenInBlack: "Rose" mentions that the angels who took her had friends on Earth who dressed like undertakers, with dark smoky glasses. At the end of the story, a pair of strange men wearing black suits and smoked glasses show up and take the girl away.
23	* NonhumansLackAttributes: During his encounter with the Little Grey People, Crowley perceives them as being completely naked and devoid of attributes.
24	* PhonyPsychic: When we first see Catriona at the beginning of the story, she's taking part in a seance, in what turns out to be a sting operation to reveal the fraudulence of the psychic medium.
25	* ReptilianConspiracy: one of the forms of alien that appear.
26	* SpookySeance: The story opens with a seance, which at first goes quite according to the playbook: the medium divines that a young woman is seeking contact with a young man who served in the Great War, assures her that her soldier felt no pain when he died and that he sends his love to her from the afterlife, and a ghostly, indistinct image appears. It then quickly collapses into chaos after the young woman, Catriona, points out that her soldier, Edwin, ''isn't dead yet'', and proceeds to deconstruct the psychic's act with devastating accuracy and reveal to her other patrons that she's a sham.
27	* SuperWindowJump: After it becomes obvious the girl isn't human, she escapes by leaping through a closed window.
28	* ATrueStoryInMyUniverse: Inevitably comes up, since the Diogenes Club originated in one of Sir Arthur's ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' stories. In-universe, Holmes, Watson, et al. are real people whose experiences Sir Arthur has written up for public consumption, though Crowley points out during a discussion of the nature of truth and reality that many of the general public believe he made them up.
29	* WickedWasps: TheVicar of Angel Down has a [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes deathly phobia about wasps]] as a result of a traumatic childhood incident. The girl he takes into his home transforms according to either want her to be, or are afraid she might be. In his case, she transforms into a wasp woman and stings him to death.

Context Literature / AngelDownSussex