Niall has been running a short story reading club over on Torque Control. I’m a bit behind, but here’s my thoughts so far, provided in my usual brief gush of thoughts (cue comments about the state of online reviewing).
The Best Monkey by Daniel Abraham
Hmm. As has been said on many a rejection letter “this story didn’t grab me”. The core idea was, well, just, yeah. The cool secret stuff never got cool. And I didn’t really feel any empathy for any of the characters I’m afraid.
Yeah I know that’s not a very insightful review, but I read it, went “oh” and then forgot it.
TC Discussion here.
Oh no, Faeries. I hate faeries, so any story with them in it has to be amazing for me to like it. Unfortunately this wasn’t amazing, it’s a manipulative story where faeries steal a child who then gets cancer. It uses all that annoying faerie phrasing. It’s probably supposed to be some deep allegory for how you grow to love a child or something, but I just wanted the faeries to die and the child to live and the story to have never been possible. I hated it.
TC discussion here.
This Must Be The Place by Elliot Bangs
Ahhh, that’s more like it. The Time Travellers Wife, but different and set in the legendary year of 1984 . I loved the gentle rhythm of the story: a chatty narrative, a mystery that seems easy to guess, a mundane life meeting an extraordinary one. No explosive set pieces or world ending action, or life and death emotion, but some love and some emotion. All through the first half of the story I was hoping that the resolution would be more than another time travelling love story rehash, and fortunately it was, a pleasant enjoyable twist. I liked it a lot.
TC discussion here.
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