The Night Raiders - Marlin Williams

   2022; 96 pages.   New Author? : No.  Book 5 (out of 5) in the upcoming Pulp Reality digest “The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin”.  Genres : Action & Adventure; Pulp Fiction; Short Stories.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Captain Steven Hawklin rides again!  He flies again!  But most of all, he rockets again!  And he’s doing it all to protect a cargo plane carrying a valuable payload and flying way out over the Atlantic Ocean.

 

    There’s a lot Captain Hawklin doesn’t know about the operation.  Such as who might be trying to bring shoot down the cargo plane.  And what the precious cargo is.  But one thing he knows for sure.

 

    If the cargo plane doesn’t make it to its destination, the smuggler who owns the plane's consifnment will kill the someone especially precious to Captain Hawklin.

 

    Desa Wintergreen.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Night Raiders is a short story penned by Marlin Williams and, as shown in the fabulous cover image above, part of a soon-to-be-released anthology, The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin.  It will showcase Charles F. Millhouse's dashing hero, Captain Steven Hawklin, and five veteran Pulp Reality authors have contributed tales to it.

    The action in The Night Raiders starts immediately, and includes lots of furious fighting, damsels in distress, nasty Nazis, and even a femme fatale or two. There are plenty of plot twists, which keeps our hero off-balance and the reader turning the pages. I especially liked the situational ethics dilemma he finds himself in: how should he respond to an unsavory foe who's blackmailing him into aiding and abetting a shady operation?

 

    AFAIK, all the Captain Hawklin adventures are set in the 1930s.  Biplanes exist alongside personal rocket-packs (Captain Hawklin is an ingenious inventor.), and the story's historical details are well-researched.  For instance, I thought I had found a glitch when a Sopwith Camel's propeller shattered because it was made of wood, but it turns out these vintage World War One planes really were equipped with wooden propellers.  Kudos to Marlin Williams for this enlightening bit of historical accuracy.

Ratings…
    Amazon:  5.0/5 based on 1 rating and 1 review. (mine)

    Goodreads: 5.00/5 based on 2 ratings and 0 reviews.

 

Excerpt...

    “Whose dumb idea was it to fly out on a night like this anyway?”

    “It was the broad’s idea,” the pilot shot back.  “She insisted.”

    “I thought German dames were smart, but apparently not that broad.”  The copilot hiked his thumb and aimed it back toward the fuselage.  “She ain’t got a lick of sense.”

    Eva Braun, who was now standing just outside the cockpit spoke coldly.  “This senseless broad was wondering if she could get a cigarette from one of you gentlemen.”  (loc. 473)

 

“How’s a skyrocket strapped to your back supposed to protect us?”  (loc. 456)

    The Night Raiders held my interest throughout and I highly recommend it to any fan of Pulp Fiction. Thus far it's the only one of the five short stories I've read, but thanks to an earlier anthology titled Pulp Reality 2, I'm familiar with the works of all these writers. The others are Brian K. Morris, Bobby Nash, Clyde Hall, and Charles F. Millhouse and I've found all five to be talented storytellers.

 

    Now the only question is whether to buy the other four entries as singles at their present great price (99 cents apiece), or wait for the bundle to come out, which is slated for January 2023. It's a pleasant problem to have.

The Holiday Collection - The Eclective

   2011; 142 pages.  New Authors? : For the most part, no.  Genres: Anthology; Christmas Fiction; Short Stories.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

   Nine talented indie authors were tasked with writing a short story with a  "December Holiday” theme.  For the most part that means Christmas, but it could also apply to Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and even the Winter Solstice.

 

    I doubt the authors were given any other guidelines.  The length of a short story is ill-defined, and here the longest one is just over 30 pages, while the shortest ones are a mere seven pages or so.  Two of the tales are written from the first-person point of view, the rest are in the third-person.  Each of the tales has at least one twist in it to keep the reader entertained.

 

    At 142 pages (so sez my Kindle), The Holiday Collection is a quick and easy read.  So if you’re looking for a bunch of fast-moving festive tales, this book may just be your cup of eggnog.

 

What’s To Like...

    The titles of the nine stories (and authors) in The Holiday Collection are:

  1.) St. Claws – Alan Nayes

  2.) Snow Whisperers – Lizzy Ford

  3.) Saving Grace – Julia Crane

  4.) O Christmas Cactus, O Christmas Cactus – M. Edward McNally

  5.) Fred’s Best Christmas – P.J. Jones

  6.) Fresh Snow – Talia Jager

  7.) Let’s Ride – Shéa MacLeod

  8.) A Very Shero Christmas – Jack Wallen

  9.) The Darkest Night – Heather Marie Adkins

 

    There’s a decent amount of variety to the tones of these stories, which was a welcome respite from the slew of Hallmark Christmas Movies my wife watches every December.  A couple of the tales have a somewhat “dark” tint to them, which in no way detracts from their holiday themes.  Among the others, one has a  romance theme, three felt “warm-&-fuzzy” to me, one left a lump in my throat, one was a innovative take-off of  A Christmas Carol, and one , believe it or not, was a sci-fi thriller.  My favorites were 2, 4, 5, and 9; but honestly, I enjoyed them all.  Your faves will almost certainly be different.

 

    You’ll meet some cross-dressers, empaths, talking snowmen, and a Jedi knight along the way.  You can help celebrate the Winter Solstice, see auras, and help thwart a “hit” that’s been put on Santa.  I only recall one music nod – to Katy Perry of all people.  There’s a brief author’s bio at the end of each story, and I liked those.  

 

    O Christmas Cactus, O Christmas Cactus resonated with me because it’s set in my present environs.  Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport (from which you get a lovely view of the harbor as you land) really is a rat’s maze to get out of.  And if the protagonist has trouble visualizing the famed Camelback Mountain nearby, he’ll have an even tougher time seeing the lesser-known “Monk of the Mountain” on the northern part of the camel’s head, who once a time, on a psychedelic night, turned his head and stared threateningly at me.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Blahniks (n., plural) : a high-end shoe brand.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.4/5 based on 32 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.70/5 based on 125 ratings and 11 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    He watched the big man open a refrig and pull out a cold beer and pop the top.

    “How’d you know my name?” Matt asked.

    “I know everybody that comes to St. Claws.  I’m the town’s founder.”

    “Whoopee-do.  Everybody?”

    “Yup.”  He poured a double shot from the Patron bottle.

    “My wife and boy?”

    “Jenny and Billy.”

    Matt eyed the man suspiciously.  “This is getting weird.  Where’s my tequila?”  (loc. 309)

 

    Garth Vader, Intergalactic Ambassador and Jedi Knight, walked up to them, carrying his tinfoil lightsaber in one hand and a carton of orange juice in the other.  Garth’s few strands of graying hair were gelled back and he’d even shaved his scraggly beard.

    Garth’s gaze swept over the room as patients quietly opened stockings and stuffed their faces with candy.  “I sense a change in The Force.”  (loc. 1086)

 Kindle Details…

    ANAICT, The Holiday Collective is always free at Amazon.  The Eclective has five other short story anthologies available for your Kindle, with the labels Celtic, Pride, the Apocalypse, Haunted, and Halloween.  All of those are likewise free right now.

Her boyfriend of two years had just given her the “it’s not you, it’s me … and my new girlfriend” speech, two days before Christmas.  (loc. 522)

    There’s not much to quibble about in The Holiday Collection.  Most of the stories have a small amount of cussing in them, which might come as a surprise for a Christmas-themed anthology.  One tale was cussword-free, while three others had more than fifteen instances apiece.  I don’t recall any R-rated stuff besides that.

 

    The editing was overall quite good, with most of the errors occurring in just one of the tales.  This makes me believe that each contributing author was responsible for his/her own proofreading.  Most anthologies have an editor-in-chief, and I wonder if that would have been helpful here.  One other author seemed to have trouble with the use of commas when dialogue is directed to a specified person; sometimes it was done correctly, sometimes not.

 

    All in all, The Holiday Collection was a short but pleasant read.  I’ve read other stories by most of these writers, and so the polished storytelling was not unexpected.  Kindle gives an estimated reading time of 2 hours and 48 minutes, although as usual, I broke that up into four or five nights to prolong the fun.

 

    8 Stars.  Sadly, it appears that The Eclective, aka The Indie Eclective has been mothballed.  They put out these six anthologies in 2011-12, but none since.  One of the authors, Heather Marie Adkins, put out three more anthologies, apparently all Wiccan-oriented, in 2016-18, but I don’t see any more of those after that.  I'm guessing that the career path of an independent author is a tough road to travel.

The Cyberiad Stories - Stanislaw Lem

    1967 (original Polish); 1974 (English translation); 295 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Humorous Sci-Fi; Anthology; Fantasy; Polish Literature.  Overall Rating : 5*/10.

    Let’s hear it for that great constructor, Trurl!  Hip-hip-hoo-huh?  Wait, you’ve never heard of Trurl?!

    He’s only the most fantastic constructor in the galaxy, that’s all.  Wait, you don’t know what a constructor is?!  Jeez, okay, let’s start with that.

    A constructor, well, constructs things.  Mostly machines that are programmed to do seemingly magical stuff, but sometimes other things like robots, demons, and computers.  Trurl is the best in the universe at this, which puts him in high demand by nearby (measured in light-years) kings who can afford such things.

    The second-most skilled constructor in the galaxy is Klapaucius, who just happens to be a neighbor of Trurl’s, and who might not agree about who’s the top constructor.  Sometimes the two of them collaborate on building a machine; sometimes they compete.  No matter.  The kings who send them requests for some coveted never-been-built-before machines are always impressed.

    Alas, those who wear the royal crowns are notoriously stingy.  Building a fabulous machine is one thing.  Collecting payment for it is quite another.

What’s To Like...

    The Cyberiad Stories (hereafter called “Cyberiad”) consists of 15 tales, of varying lengths, but mostly short stories that, with one exception, all feature either Trurl or a Trurl-plus-Klapaucius team  My personal favorites are:

05.) Trurl’s Electronic Bard

07.) The Dragons of Probability

11.) How Trurl and Klapaucius Created a Demon of the Second Kind to Defeat the Pirate Pugg

15.) From the Cyphroeroticon or Tales of Deviations, Superfixations, and Aberrations of the Heart

    #5 stands apart from all the rest.  Stanislaw Lem shows off his masterful wordplay, which is even more impressive since this is a translation from the original Polish.  My hat’s off to Michael Kandel, credited in the forward as the translator.  To boot, there are all sorts of made-up words in the book; I am completely mystified as to how one goes about translating such things.  The first excerpt below is an example of Stanislaw Lem's linguistic levity.

    It’s fun to see what machines are created by our hero(es) in each tale, and the cosmic, comic consequences (usually unintended) that ensue.  Some of these constructions are: a.) one that grants your every wish; b.) one that can create anything that starts with the letter “n”; c.) the world’s stupidest computer; d.) one that generates poetry; e.) one that can make a person “fall out of love”.

     Stanislaw Lem often incorporates “fancy” words from some technical field into the tale.  One time it’s chemistry, another time it’s physics, still another time it’s statistics.  Being a chemist, I loved it; although readers with a non-technical bent may find this a bit tedious.  Also, since I’m a crossword puzzle fanatic, I delighted in the brief nods to acrostics and anagrams, as well as the oft-used crossword puzzle phrase "lèse majesté".

    Since this is a collection of short stories, there’s no real “ending” to the book as a whole.  The cover art comes from Story #2, “Trurl’s Machine”, and the title reference is brief, coming at 17% Kindle.  There’s only one or two instances of cusswords, and no sex, booze, or drugs that I recall.

Kewlest New Word...

Benighted (adj.) : in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance.

Others: Quoins (n., plural); Soughed (v.).

Excerpts...

    “Have it compose a poem – a poem about a haircut!  But lofty, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom!  Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter ‘s’!!”

    Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.

    She scissored short.  Sorely shorn,

    Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed.

    Silently scheming,

    Sightlessly seeking

    Some savage, spectacular suicide.  (loc. 594)

    “As this work too was totally ignored, I straightway wrote another; in it I presented all the possible hypotheses concerning the origin of the Universe – first, the opinion that it doesn’t exist at all, second, that it’s the result of all the mistakes made by a certain Demiurgon, who set out to create the world without the faintest idea of how to go about it, third, that the world is actually a hallucination of some Superbrain gone berserk in a manner infinite but bounded, four, that it is an asinine thought materialized as a joke, five, that it is matter that thinks, but with an abysmally low IQ.”  (loc. 3004)

Kindle Details...

     Amazon offers Cyberiad for $11.49 at present.  There are a slew of other e-books by Stanislaw Lem available, almost all of them science-fiction novels, in the $1.99-$11.99 price range.

Though it is easier not to believe in electrons than in dragons: electrons, at least, taken singly, won’t try to make a meal of you.  (loc. 1064)

    The wordplay is fantastic, but the storytelling is not.  All the stories seem to follow the same template, namely:

    a.) Trurl and/or Klapaucius visit some king on another planet.

    b.) The king poses a wish for some sort of machine.

    c.) Our wizards accept and magically build the machine in almost no time at all.

    d.) Lots of talk and/or trickery ensues.

    e.) the wizards prevail and live happily ever after, or at least until the next adventure.

    I got bored after a while.  So did other reviewers, who recommended reading Cyberiad in small amounts, presumably to minimize the “samey-ness” of the tales.

    It needs to be pointed out that these stories are technically not science fiction.  Our heroes could just as easily travel to a neighboring kingdom instead of a nearby planet, in which case this book would be shelved under “Fantasy”.

    Finally, the book is in sore need of another round of proofreading.  And some sort of unifying storyline. 

    5 Stars.  Collections of short stories are never my favorite genre, particularly those that are all written by the same author.  ANAICT, the rest of Stanislaw Lem’s  books are standard science-fiction novels.  I have one of them on my Kindle, Peace On Earth, and will probably read it in the near future in order to give Mr. Lem a fair shake.

The Future, Imperfect - Ruth Nestvold

    2012; 189 pages.  New Author? : Yes. Full Title: The Future, Imperfect: Six Dystopian Short Stories.   Genre : Short Stories; Anthology; Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

    I have seen the future, and the future is bleak.  Epidemics and pandemics have decimated the world populations.  Governments, both local and national, have collapsed, allowing plagues and pollution to spread unchecked, further diminishing the number of humans, plants, and animals, around the globe.

    Yet all is not lost.  Money talks, and private corporations have assumed the role of government.  For those who are rich enough, havens are available in “corporate zones”: walled communities with powerful mercenary security forces to keep the riffraff out.  For the poor, the only option is the “burbs”, where disease, radiation, crime, and the lack of clean food and water significantly combine to shorten one’s lifespan.

     The only good news is that there are a number of corporations out there, each vying with the others for more power and profits.  The more corporate zones a company has, the more power, people, and money it commands.  That means they are willing to buy up some of the burbs, make improvements by cleaning up contaminants and providing security, as long as they can recoup their investment.

    There is one additional asset that every corporation covets: Technology.  Particularly in virtual and electronic forms, and particularly technology that other corporations have developed.  Any means of acquiring it is okay.   Including industrial espionage, stealing, and kidnapping.

    Even murder.

What’s To Like...

    The Future, Imperfect is comprised of six short stories, five of which were published previously in various Sci-Fi/Fantasy magazines.  All but one of them is set along the US west coast, where, according to Wikipedia, the author was born and raised, although she now lives in Germany.  The six stories are:

01.  A Handful of Dust  (@ 01%)

    Published in “Forgotten Worlds” in 2006.

02.  Latency Time  (@ 19%)

    Published in “Asimov’s Science Fiction” in 2001.

03.  Shadow Memory  (@ 32%)

    Published in “Marsdust” in 2004.

04.  Exit Without Saving  (@ 50%)

    Published in “Futurismic” in 2006.

05.  Killfile  (@ 60%)

    ANAICT, not previously published.

06.  The Other Side of Silence  (@ 78%)

    Published in “Futurismic” in 2006.

    All of them appear to be set in the post-apocalyptic world described above, with some minor tweaks.  My favorites were 02 and 06; yours will most likely be different.

    I was impressed with the world-building despite the fact that Ruth Nestvold is constrained by the shortness of each story.  Corporations replacing governments is an innovative-yet-plausible twist to a post-apocalyptic world.  I chuckled at newspapers and used-book stores being viewed as old-fashioned, then sadly realized that’s already come true.

    The technological advances that really drew me in.  You can “become” someone else via morphing into a sim (aka “morph units”) and genetic modifications have been taken to a whole new level (aka “genmods”).  These leaps in technology can be used both for entertainment (for example: find out how you’d like being the opposite gender), or for espionage, where descriptions of suspects is pretty much irrelevant, since they can morph their appearance at will.

    The Future, Imperfect is an incredibly short read.  Amazon says it’s 189 pages long, but that seems to be a stretch (pun intended).  If you have a book report due tomorrow, and you haven’t even started reading anything, this may be the answer to your procrastination.

    I enjoyed the literary nod to Fahrenheit 451 and The Scarlet Pimpernel (Story 5).  The “Purists” (Story 1) can easily arise in the future, but so can the “holo-porn” (Story 6).  I can’t think of any other story set in Montenegro (where?), as in Story 2.   There’s a bit of cussing, some references to adult situations, and the hint of sexual molestation.  Little Timmy and Susie should probably not read this book.  Stories by Ruth Nestvold have been short-listed for the Tiptree Award (best sci-fi or fantasy novel, 2004), and nominated for the Nebula Award (2008), but neither of these are included in this anthology.  Both are available at Amazon, though.

Kindle Details...

    The Future, Imperfect presently sells for $0.99 at Amazon.  Ruth Nestvold has another dozen-plus e-books available for the Kindle, ranging in price from Free to $6.99, and in length from short stories, to novellas, to full-length novels.

Excerpts...

    He led her into the town center of Pljevlja, halting in front of an astonishingly beautiful house, deserted now.  Despite the destruction of the roof and the corner of one wall, it was an impressive sight, the front wall covered in calligraphic inscriptions, still discernable.

    “Turkish,” Mihailo said.

    “What a shame that it hasn’t been repaired,” Alis murmured.  The wonders Mihailo found for her no longer surprised her.  He was selling his country, after all – trying to persuade the representative of a big corporation that it was worth saving.  While she understood his motives, she wondered how he would like it once Montenegro was turned into a Disneyland attraction.  (loc. 547)

    Mercedes stepped behind the counter, slipping out of the fitted wool jacket she’d bought at a local thrift shop.  Bonnie turned a page of the newspaper.  A color photo in the top left-hand corner caught Mercedes’s eye.  (…)

    “You want a section?” Bonnie asked.

    She wished she could snatch the paper out of her boss’s hands, but she played nonchalant.  “I prefer a screen and some action rather than just words,” Mercedes said, bringing up the monitor on the right end of the tabletop.  “Not as boring.”  (loc. 1721)

Suddenly, a fluorescent rabbit didn’t seem quite as horrible as it had minutes before.  (loc. 2149)

    Some of the stories have unfinished endings, and others have unfinished romances.  There are also repeating themes of having second thoughts about the ethics of the corporations and some “Big Brother is watching” angst, but such repetition is probably inherent to a bundle of short stories written by a single author and within a single genre.

    Overall, The Future, Imperfect has a feel of being the author’s collection of short stories thrown together for an e-book offering.  Which, of course, is exactly what this is.

    My least favorite story was the first one, and I almost stopped reading after finishing it.  Fortunately, I changed my mind, and enjoyed all of the other stories, to the point of where I became fascinated by Ruth Nestvold’s futuristic world.  Maybe I was just slow in getting acclimated.

    But I pick at nits.  I’d love to see these six tales woven into, or used as a basis for, a full-length novel.  Better yet, develop it into a series.  I don’t think any of the author’s other e-books use this setting; instead she seems to have switched over to writing fantasy novels with strong female protagonists.  I can’t argue with that choice, but being proficient in two genres might reach an even wider audience.

    6 Stars.  I’m not a big fan of anthologies and short stories; so add 1 star if you are.  OTOH, I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, so subtract 1 star if you’re not.

Stupefying Stories 21 - Bruce Bethke (Editor)

    2018; 213 pages.  New Author(s)? : Yes, all 9 of them.  Genre : Short Stories; Anthology; Horror; Fantasy; Sci-Fi; Time-Travel.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

    Are you old enough to remember The Twilight Zone?  No, not the 1983 movie, although that was great, too.  Rather, the black-&-white TV series that ran from 1959 to 1964.  Rod Serling was the host, and his opening and closing monologues were always memorable.

    I was a devoted viewer of the show, mostly because you never knew what to expect.  One week, it might be a Time-Travel episode, such as The 7^th Is Made Up Of Phantoms, where a modern-day tank crew returns to the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  The next week would bring a Horror story, such as Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, featuring an early William Shatner.  (Wiki it.)  Or you might get a Fantasy story, such as Jack Klugman beating Jonathan Winters in a billiards game in A Game of Pool.  Or some weird Science Fiction story, such as the episode with the unforgettable title of To Serve Man.

    The neat thing was, you could never guess what genre you were about to watch, or what the tone would be.  Some episodes were dark and scary.  Others were whimsical or poignant.  In a word, you could call them strange.  Or varied.  Or eerie.  The editor Bruce Bethke has his own word to describe such a diversity in tones and genres.

    He calls them Stupefying.

What’s To Like...

    Stupefying Stories 21 is comprised of nine tales, each by a different author, all of approximately equal lengths, that being about 20 pages apiece.  The titles, Kindle locations, authors, and teasers are:

Table of Contents (spoiler-free)...

01)  The Crippled Sucker (01) – L. Joseph Shosty

    Poker on the Polar Express.

02)  My Disrupted Pony (15) – Jeff Racho

     Get in and drive.

03)  Cog and Bone (25) – M. Lynette Pedersen

    Music and mortality do mix.

04)  Dew Line (37) – K.H. Vaughan

    Cold War chills in Canada.

05)  Tendrils Beneath the Skin (49) – Derrick Boden

    Here, have a little vine.

06)  The Phoenix of Christ Church (59) – Rebecca Birch

    A blitz in Time saves mine.

07)  Lenses (66) – Eric Dontigney

    Caught on film.

08)  The Search For Josephine (75) – James Mapes

    So you think your in-laws are different?

09)  Wayfaring Stranger (89) – Peter Wood

    The soul of ET.

    Stupefying Stories 21 is an incredibly fast and easy read, so if you have a book report due tomorrow and you haven’t even started to read anything, this is the one to choose.  You can easily finish it in a single sitting.

    All of the tales are well-structured and well-written.  I was pleasantly surprised that none of the writers were "weak links", nor did any of the stories feel like they were "mailed in".  Perhaps that merits a tip-of-the-hat to the editor, either for his selection of the writers or for demanding a certain level of quality in the entries.

    Only one of the stories is in the first-person POV (My Disrupted Pony).  There is just a smidgen of cussing, and I only recall one roll-in-the-hay.  I liked the concept of a reverse camera, and enjoyed being introduced to Lok’tus and Chickenpeckers.  Ditto for the music nods to Jim Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, and Beethoven’s Fur Elise.  They all resonated with me; and anytime you mention Jackson Pollock or throw in a bit of French, you’ve got me hooked.  Finally, I hadn’t thought about the (now defunct) DEW Line in ages; thanks for reviving that bit of nostalgia.

Excerpts...

    It had been two years since Reverend Hale had found her huddled on the front steps, cold and shivering in the bleakly gray December of London, 1938.  He hadn’t asked questions, which was just as well.  Mary had no answers to give.  Her last memories were of collapsing into a fitful slumber in 2012, beside the smoldering remains of the blood-stained rug where she’d found her brother, the contents of his skull painting her bedroom in a Pollock-painting spray.  (loc. 1281)

    He never expected to live an extraordinary life and took great comfort in the knowledge that his modest talents supported his modest aspirations.  He lived alone and, although he sometimes thought about marriage, he found women perplexing.  When his friends set him up on blind dates, he went and did his best to be charming.  He was occasionally rewarded with a second date, but never a third.  (loc. 1446)

“It’s like Waiting For Godot but with supply airplanes.”  (loc. 986)

    I’m a bit leery of mentioning my personal favorites from any anthology book, because everyone’s literary tastes are different.  Nevertheless, here are the ones that stuck out in my mind, in no particular order.

    The Phoenix of Christ Church.  Because I'm partial to time-travel stories.

    Tendrils Beneath The Skin and Wayfaring Stranger.  Because both stories ask tough, situational-ethics-type questions.

    The Crippled Sucker.  Because there are very few writers who can make playing poker on a train into a fascinating story, and that was the case here.

    Your faves will almost certainly be different from mine.  A reviewer at Amazon cited My Disrupted Pony as a stand-out story, and I certainly can’t disagree with that choice, or any other selection.

    8½ Stars.  I can’t think of anything to quibble about in Stupefying Stories 21, except for: at only 9 stories and 213 total pages, it was over far too quickly.  Another half-dozen tales would’ve been nice.  Then again, if that means adding a bunch of short stories that don’t measure up to these 9 in quality, I’d probably be griping about that.  Readers are a picky lot.

The Eclective - The Celtic Collection

   2012; 130 pages.  New Authors? : Yes for four; No for two.  Genre : Short Stories; Anthology; Ireland.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    “Hey, I’m in the mood to read something set in Ireland.  Whattaya recommend?”

    “How about a Harlequin Romance, maybe with a Highlander setting?”

    Oh, good yucky graciousness, no!  I don’t want anything with even a trace of Romance in it.”

    “Okay, then I suggest the book “The Celtic Collection”.  Six short stories, all with an Irish tinge, and all from the twisted minds of a group of writers that call themselves “The Eclective”.  I’ve read anthologies by them before.  They’re quite the talented group.  But I must tell you, there is a trace of Romance in it.”

    “Hmm.  I don’t know then.”

    “Did I mention: it’s a free download at Amazon?”

    “Really?!  Well, I’ve just changed my mind.  I think I can tolerate a bit of the lovey-dovey stuff.”

What’s To Like...

    The six tales in The Eclective: The Celtic Collection are:

01.)  Irish Kiss (by Shéa MacLeod)

    Fantasy; Leprechauns and Larceny.

02.)  The Luck of the Irish Brigade (by M. Edward McNally)

    Historical Fiction; Whiskey and Warfare don’t mix.

03.)  Song of the Banshee (by Heather Marie Adkins)

    Paranormal; A wail of a love story.

04.)  The Red Veil of Vengeance (by Jack Wallen)

    Horror; Fangs be to God.

05.)  Zombies Eat Leprechauns (by P.J. Jones)

    Faerie Tales; You can take it with you, but you have to sign for it.

06.)  Five Shamrocks (by Alan Nayes)

    Romance; How long will you wait for me?

    Appended to each story is a short, witty, tongue-in-cheek blurb about each author, as well as a plug for their book(s).  That might sound like a cheap advertising gimmick, but I thought it was a kewl touch.

    For a mere six stories, there is a remarkable variety of tone (anywhere from light and silly to dark and heavy) and  genres (listed above).  I enjoyed all the tales, but my favorites were #2, #3, and #6.  Your faves will almost certainly differ from mine.

    I’ve read full-length books by two of these authors, so I knew what to expect from their contributions.   M. Edward McNally has penned an epic, 5-book sword-&-sorcery series called The Norothian Cycle, which I am totally enthralled by.  The first book in the series, The Sable City, is reviewed here, and it is a free download over at Amazon.    P.J. Jones gives a whole new twist to things like Fairy Tales, Vampires, Pride and Prejudice, and the mentally unstable.

    It should be noted that P.J. Jones’ story here is actually (I think) from her book Attack of the Fairytale Zombies, which I've read and is reviewed here, so if you enjoy this excerpt, and want more of it, her novel awaits you.  M. Edward McNally is well-known for his attention to historical detail, so if you’re a history buff –be it fiction or non-fiction – you’ll find his story here a pleasant read.

    For me, Alan Nayes’ Five Shamrocks was the highlight of the book, which is amazing since it is essentially a love story, and my reading maxim about romance is “the less the better”.  It is a powerful piece of writing, and if it doesn’t leave a lump in your throat when you finish reading it, there’s something wrong with you.  I have two of his full-length novels on my Kindle, but haven’t read them yet.  Perhaps this is a wake-up call for me to rectify that.

Kindle Details...

    The Eclective: The Celtic Collection is free at Amazon, as are five of the other six anthologies penned by the group.  Only their most-recent offering, The Eclective: The Time Collection will cost you anything, and it’s only $0.99.  You can’t beat those deals.  All of the authors also have solo novels at Amazon.

Excerpts...

    He shouted “Aye!” when the sergeant called for “Corcoran, Francis,” though outside of roll call no one in the regiment called Corcoran by his given name.  He had become “Corky,” predictably, though that had changed when it turned out there was a James Corcoran over in Company D.  So he had become “Corky II,” which over the months had become “Corky, too,” and finally, “Corky, also.”  Now, even his mess mates tended to call him “Also.”  (loc. 368)

    Mattie sensed a soft breeze blow over her – whoosh – and then she was standing beside him.  No aches, no pains, and when she looked at her hands, the skin was smooth and vibrant.  All the blotches and age spots had vanished.  She reached up.  Her hair was thick and full.  I’m young again.

     When he kissed her, she felt carried away by a tidal wave of passion.  “I am ready, Joe.  I am!”  (loc. 1319)

“I don’t understand how a mermaid and a Leprechaun can possibly have a relationship.”  (loc. 141)

    The quibbles are minor.  First, there are only six stories, yet two of them involve leprechauns and their pots of gold.  I’ve seen such an overlap before in anthologies; I think this can be avoided by having some sort of editor-in-chief who keeps track of who’s writing about what, and squelches any  similar or duplicate storylines.

  

    Second, any anthology that only contains six short stories will be inherently a brief read.  I was disappointed that there weren’t more stories, but hey, the book is free, the writing is witty no matter what its tone, and if it leaves you thirsting for more, well, the authors have accomplished their task.

    Finally, if you happen to have a book report due tomorrow, and haven’t even started reading one yet, well shame on you, but The Eclective: The Celtic Collection might just be your saving grace.  You can easily read the entire book in less than 2 hours.  For me the book was a welcome counterbalance as I worked my way through a thousand-page piece of epic science fiction.

    7½ Stars.  Sadly, it appears these authors have disbanded as a group.  They put out seven of these anthologies during the 2011-13 years; but none since.   RIP, The Eclective.