Genre: Speculative
Fiction
Description:
“Lizzie Greene seems to have it all -- a great husband, a job she
loves, a baby on the way, even a rent-stabilized two bedroom apartment on New
York's Upper West Side. Then a random decision leads to a senseless act of
violence, and it all disappears.
But what if things had been different? What if things are different?
Could someone be both dead and not dead at the same time? Is it insanity to
believe in mysteries that go beyond human understanding, in the evidence of
things not seen?
Lizzie's sister, her best friend, and many others think she's lost her
senses, but maybe she's gotten a glimpse of something most of us never get to
see.
Schrodinger's
Telephone is more for fans of The
Twilight Zone than of Twilight.”
Author:
A native New Yorker, Marion Stein has two Masters Degrees, one in
creative writing and the other in social work. She moved around the US and
Mexico before returning to New York in September 2001. In addition to this
novella, she has a novel, Loisaida,
and another novella, The Death Trip,
available.
For more, visit Stein’s blog.
Appraisal:
Speculative fiction is an umbrella that encompasses many subgenres:
Science Fiction, Fantasy, dystopian, Horror, and Supernatural Fiction are just
some. However, some speculative fiction doesn’t neatly fit into any of the
subgenres, and Schrodinger’s Telephone
is one of those. A case could be made that it is Supernatural Fiction, but that
presupposes one specific interpretation of what happens to the protagonist,
Lizzie, when there is at least one other possibility, that Lizzie is insane.
Regardless of what we call it or how we categorize it, Schrodinger’s Telephone is a quick and
engrossing read that will exercise your mind. How would you react if someone
you knew insisted that something impossible had happened?
What if that someone was you?
FYI: Added for Reprise Review: Schrodinger’s Telephone was a nominee in
the Speculative Fiction (excluding fantasy) category for B&P 2014 Readers'
Choice Awards. Original review ran March 3, 2013
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues
Rating:
***** Five Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate
word count: 25-30,000 words
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