Reviewed by: Keith Nixon
Genre: Short Story Collection
Approximate word count: 20-25,000 words
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Author:
The author
holds degrees from several education institutions. He has held positions in
several churches and held a range of jobs during his career. The author is
currently working on the first part of a trilogy.
Description:
A
collection of six stories in a variety of genres.
Appraisal:
I spent a
lot of this book asking myself - why? Fundamentally I wasn’t sure the purpose
of the stories.
The first
tale is, like the collection, titled Fundamental
Problems. It resides in the sci-fi genre and is about two men on a space
ship who arrive at a planet called earth and inform the 8.1 billion people
living there that they haven’t been following the rules of the Creator. As a
result they have a day to respond to the charge or the planet will be destroyed
(shades of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy). For Creator, read God and for the rules read the ten commandments.
The story
is filled with entirely unfamiliar names of people, planets, galaxies, races,
dates and so on. They are introduced in a stream with little explanation –
therefore the reader has to readily accept and believe the author. I struggled
with this. The ending was supposed to be wry, however the whole story structure
left me unclear and unsatisfied.
The second short,
Literary Snob, suffered this same
issue with belief suspension. The genre this time is best described as crime.
Across a nameless city women are periodically emptying their bank account of
all their cash. The next day they are no longer in possession of the money nor
their memories of the event.
Enter Harry
Wyndham, PI, to investigate. He follows the trail to a couple who are using an
unusual method to drug the women. By the time he tracks the perpetrator down we
learn Harry is not what he seems and the criminals have managed to steal some
extremely high tech gadget and are using it in a revenge plot. I seriously
struggled to accept the premise and found the plot messy. Almost as if the
author had started out with one aim in mind and concluded with an entirely
different one.
The Muse is just that. The narrator arrives
at a flat where two friends are playing some music. The guys talk about writing
music and stories. And that’s it.
Gradual Epiphany is a coming of age type recollection.
The narrator meets a girl and joins a church to get closer to him. The pair
don’t get on, but the narrator gradually begins to wonder if there is a God
(initially starting out as a sceptic) and eventually undertakes a psychology
degree. The questioning of a higher being’s existence continues…
The Crossing is another story that starts out
down one path but concludes in another. The narrator is in a bad way, life is
not good. The guy, Mike, seems to have lost a lover. Then he receives a
voicemail from her, yet several pages on we learn his girlfriend is dead (!).
Is this a paranormal event?
Amazingly
the dead woman, Kate, calls again. But wait, she’s not dead. She thinks he’s
the one who died and is calling from the grave. Each still lives in the home
they shared – but the addresses are different. So they arrange to meet. He goes
to Kate’s flat. The voice is the same, but the person is different. Confused?
Me too.
So the pair
become friends, but marry other people. Then Mike suddenly dies and she begins
to question whether they should have actually developed a relationship… and
that’s it. Messy, unclear and confusing.
The final
story is The Minstrel’s Tale. This
was in the fantasy genre. It, like some of the earlier stories, assumes the
reader has a knowledge of the people and places within. It opens with the
narrator, a squire, discussing his Lord, Youngblade, who is the finest
swordsman in the country. One day the pair happen across a stranger and give
him shelter. It transpires the stranger is in fact a killer, and an extremely
talented one. Youngblade attempts to take the stranger prisoner, but is easily
bested and killed.
So the
squire enters the killer’s employ. Again this is a confusing tale. Lots of
unfamiliar names and races thrown in, discussions of the variety of Gods that
inhabit the world, a lot of discussion about the stranger’s motivations. Well
over halfway through the squire is finally named as Pelos, but for some reason
the killer doesn’t like this and changes Pelos’ name to Cattis. Thoroughly confusing.
The writing is at times garbled and there is repetition in word usage which
just adds to the situation.
Here’s an
example of the writing:
And so, my two-year odyssey began. I
saw much, learned much and forgot much. Most of what I forgot, I did so
intentionally, a manner of ‘unlearning’ you might say. One of the things I
learned was just how much I had to forget.
Why?
Format/Typo Issues:
Repeat word
usage.
Rating: ** Two Stars
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