The Peacock Cloak, by Chris Beckett

Second paragraph of third story (“Johnny’s New Job”):

Wednesday, the case was officially declared by the government to be an instance of Welfare Knew And Did Nothing (within the meaning of the Summary Judgement Act) so of course everyone kept their ears open and sure enough pretty soon the thrilling voice of the Public Accuser came booming out of the factory Screens, demanding on behalf of everyone there that culprits be identified for him to Name.

A second collection of short stories by Chris Beckett, whose fiction I have enjoyed over the years, collecting stories published between 2008 and 2012. I had previously read one of them, “Poppyfields”, which is included as an afterpiece to his fix-up novel Marcher. They’re all decent enough, mostly rooted in East Anglia; the one that surprised me, mostly in a good way, was “Our Land” which is a what-if story transposing the Israel-Palestine conflict onto England. There are several pairs of stories linked by their setting in distinct futures, and I was a bit annoyed that these are not paired up in the internal structure of the collection. It’s not as mind-blowing as Beckett’s previous collection, The Turing Test, but it will certainly do. You can get it here.

This was my top book acquired in 2019, and the SF book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on those piles respectively are Burned, by Sam McBride, and A Brilliant Void, by Jack Fennell.