Tag Archives: 2020s

November 7, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story

Book cover for Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story by Steven Glick. Image on cover is a black and white photo of a young, white, male soldier who is wearing an old uniform and, oddly enough for this era, smiling a little. Title: Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story

Author: Steven Glick

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: February 13, 2024

Genres: Mystery, Paranormal, LGBTQ, Historical

Length: 15 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Dreams and reality merge in this fateful story of a World War One soldier’s homecoming.

Content Warning: Grief, war, and death. Nothing is graphically described,  but World War I was not exactly a cheerful era.

Review:

The destructive forces of war should never be underestimated.

Social conventions can change rapidly over the generations, so I appreciated how clearly Mr. Glick explained exactly what and wasn’t expected from men, women, spouses, and children in the late 1910s as far as how they behaved and what interests they were supposed to have. For example, men were expected to suppress certain emotions no matter what was going on in their lives. These details were important for understanding part of the reason why David, the young soldier who was coming home for a short leave, felt so out of place in the world.

In some other genres, the foreshadowing here would have been too strong, but for this particular tale it was perfect. Claire, David’s mother, had access to so little information about how the war was going or how her son was doing that readers needed these hints in order for her walk home from Christmas shopping to make sense. (It was roughly 1918, after all, and decades away from anything like the Internet to keep families connected during tough times). Figuring out the plot twists in advance wasn’t the point here in my opinion. Instead, I gently followed along as Claire bought some very last minute gifts and worried about her child.

The ending fit the themes of this story nicely. Interestingly enough, it also provided the most mysterious elements of this piece!, so keep reading if the beginning and middle don’t feel like a typical mystery to you. I enjoyed the way the author played around with the expectations of this genre and thought it blended in well with the paranormal and LGBTQ+ themes, too. Sometimes things need to be rearranged a little in order to successfully mix genres together, and it worked quite well here, indeed.

Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story was poignant and beautiful.

 

(If you liked this review or want more paranormal World War I stories in your life, go check out my reviews of An English Heaven and The Last Photograph of John Buckley.)

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October 31, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Old Forests and Older Things Within

Book cover for Old Forests and Older Things Within by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover is a photo taken of a mountain range on a very foggy day. It’s so foggy, in fact, that this looks like a black and white photo! You can see pine forests growing on the smaller mountains (or maybe large hills) in the foreground, but the fog grows thicker as you look up. It’s an overcast day and only thin ribbons of sunlight make it through the clouds overhead. Title: Old Forests and Older Things Within

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 9, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 25 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 stars

Blurb:

Victor Martinez-Silva thought he was going to enjoy a leisurely vacation in Peru with his wife.

As they were hiking up to the ruins of Choquequirao, something happened to his wife, Amy–something Victor couldn’t explain, much less stop.

However, a stranger found them in the nick of time, and he seemed to know exactly what to do.

Enjoy this short story introducing Lawrence G. Samson, hunter of otherworldly monstrosities hiding on our planet, waiting for the opportunity to wreak havoc on humanity!

Content Warning: parasitic infection

Review:

Hikes are supposed to be relaxing, right?

Nature can be a little intimidating at times for some of us, so I appreciated the fact that Mr. Kohn leaned into this fear in order to set the scene. There’s nothing like a character being many miles away from help in an emergency to highlight just how quickly things can go wrong and how much courage it takes to race to safety when the unthinkable happens. If any outdoors readers check this tale out, I’d love to read your takes on the themes here as I’m sure they can be a read differently by experienced hikers and campers.

I would have liked to see a little more time showing the characters’ personalities. Obviously, the fast pacing and short length can’t leave a lot of room for exposition, but I’d struggle to describe the characters if someone asked me what it would be like to meet them other than to say that Lawrence didn’t always give the clearest instructions and Victor didn’t always comprehend what he was asked to do because of how panicked he was about his wife’s condition. This could have easily been expanded upon in a few more paragraphs, and I would have happily gone with a five-star rating if the author had made that choice. Everything else about it was well written.

One of my challenges as a book blogger involves figuring out how to talk about twist endings without giving them away in my reviews. The twist is this tale was something I suspected might be coming, but I’m not the sort of reader who has to be surprised in order to enjoy something. It was still fun to see how it played out once Victor had more information about what was happening. I suspect that he would have figured it out sooner under calmer circumstances as my first impression of him was of someone who is generally capable and smart.

Old Forests and Older Things Within was an atmospheric autumn read.

 

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October 24, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls

Title: I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment WallsBook cover for I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls by Ben Farthing. Image on cover is an AI-generated image of a blue puppet peeking out at the viewer from a wooden closet. There is an ominous tone to this scene even though puppets aren’t scary to me!

Author: Ben Farthing

Publisher: Self-Published (I think?)

Publication Date: August 1, 2023

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 160 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library

Rating: 3 stars

Blurb:

Johnny awakes. A puppet looms over his bed.

He recognizes the furry Grandpa was its puppeteer on the children’s television show R-City Street. But Grandpa went missing a year ago. He disappeared from this very apartment building, which was converted from the old R-City Street studio.

Desperate to see Grandpa again, Johnny follows the puppet inside the building’s walls, ever deeper into a puppet-infested labyrinth…

I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls is a horror tale from the “darkly inventive” purveyor of uncanny places and wondrous evils, Ben Farthing.

Each book in the I Found Horror series is a STANDALONE. They can be read in any order.

Content Warning: Puppets

Review:

We need more weird fiction in the world.

I’m going to be perfectly honest in this review and say that I don’t find puppets scary at all. They’re such an uncommon choice for antagonists in the horror genre – well, unless you’re counting dolls and puppets in the same category – that I was quite curious to discover how Mr. Farthing was going to make such cute and cuddly toys into something that fits into this genre. He had a few tricks up his sleeves that made them scarier than they at first appeared to be, and I thought he did a good job with his unusual subject matter. Bravo to him for taking risks and writing something off of the beaten path! (Needless to say, people who are terrified of puppets may have completely difference experiences with this story, so reader beware if that is the case for you).

Once again, there was a lot of repetition in this tale. I believe it would have worked better as a short story or novella as I simply didn’t see enough plot or character development to justify making this a full-length piece. This is something I’m saying as someone who loves short stories and novellas and think they should be much more commonly used than they currently are in modern fiction. I’d much rather read something short, sweet, and powerful than see that same concept stretched out into a longer work, and I would have given this a higher rating for its originality had it either been trimmed back or included more lore to give this world and these characters additional depth.

One of the strengths of Mr. Farthing’s writing style has to do with the motivations his characters have and how well they’re explained. Normally, I’d be suspicious of protagonists who found a giant crack in their bedroom wall and immediately decided to squeeze into it to see what was behind the wall. Wouldn’t they be worried about getting stuck back there or accidentally being exposed to toxic mold or any other number of harmful substances like most of us would be in that situation? The beauty of this story was partially related to the deep grief Johnny and Brittany were experiencing after their grandfather’s mysterious disappearance and their determination to figure out what happened to him. Grief can encourage people to make all sorts of choices they might otherwise think twice about, so diving so deeply into their family relationships made their later decision to go searching for him feel much more reasonable.

While I never share any spoilers in my reviews, I can say that the ending was fabulous and well worth the wait. If you pause in the first chapter or two and wonder if it will be worth it to keep reading, count this as a vote to push forward and see what wonders await you. As I mentioned in my review of the first book in this series, be sure to read the author’s explanation of where his ideas come from after the final scene as well.

I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls was a wild and creative ride.

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October 17, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Why Didn’t You Just Leave

Book cover for Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin. Image on cover is a blurry black and white drawing of someone standing inside their home after dark. You can see oddly dim light spilling out of the window and illuminating the silhoutte of this person, but you can’t see any identifying details of them like their sex, age, race, etc. This image has a gloomy and hopeless feel to it as if the person knows they are trapped and have given up trying to escape. Title: Why Didn’t You Just Leave

Author: Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin (Editors)

Publisher: Cursed Morsels Press

Publication Date: April 30, 2024

Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 308 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

It’s the question asked of any story about a haunting: why didn’t you just leave? But if accounts of people who have stayed in haunted houses are any indication … it’s never that simple.

In this book, you’ll find twenty-two all-new stories about the reasons people don’t leave scary situations—parents who stay in haunted houses to protect their children, convicts who literally can’t leave their prison, retail workers who need a paycheck even if it’s from a haunted workplace, trauma survivors suffering from agoraphobia, and more.

Featuring Shauntae Ball, I.S. Belle, Die Booth, Max Booth III, Christa Carmen, Raquel Castro, Alberto Chimal, Gabe Converse, Lyndsey Croal, Victoria Dalpe, Alexis DuBon, Corey Farrenkopf, Cassandra Khaw, Joe Koch, E.M. Linden, Steve Loiaconi, R. Diego Martinez, J.A.W. McCarthy, Suzan Palumbo, Tonia Ransom, Rhiannon Rasmussen, and Eden Royce. With illustrations by Luke Spooner, Yves Tourigny, and Yornelys Zambrano.

Content Warning: Murder. Possible infanticide. Serial killer. Deaths caused by things like drowning, falls, or hypothermia. A character with a transphobic parent who misgenders him. Emotional abuse. A ghost child who died from neglect. Pregnancy. Covid. Animal deaths. Infidelity. Hoarding. I won’t discuss any of these topics other than the last one in my review.

Review:

Escape isn’t always as easy as it may seem.

The bureaucracy in ”Your Application to Vacate 372 Wicker Avenue Is Still Pending” was simultaneously amusing and scary, especially once I realized why this particular home was included as an affordable option for low-income applicants.  Writing it in epistolary form only increased the tension in the storyline as it was easy to imagine what sorts of angry and frightened letters the clerk was responding to as things went from bad to worse.

As much as I enjoyed the theme of this anthology, the stories themselves were  uneven. Some of them were excellent while others ended much too abruptly for my tastes. While I wouldn’t expect every loose end in them to be tied up, there were multiple times when I was left hanging and wondering what just happened. ”The Spirit Bed” was one example of this. It showed what happened to two sisters after one of them was attacked by an evil spirit. I was immediately drawn into the storyline but surprised by how quickly it ended and how many unanswered questions I had by the final sentence.

“AITA For Setting My Dad’s Trailer on Fire?” was a memorable way to end this book. It was written in the style of Reddit post by a character who wondered what her ethical obligation was to her parents whose house had become unliveable thanks to hoarding. (You do not have to be familiar with Reddit or the Am I the A**hole subreddit in order to understand this one, but people who do understand the social conventions on that site and that subreddit in particular many find a few extra things to think about).  I don’t want to give away spoilers about what else she discovered there, but I loved the narrative flow of this one as additional layers of detail were revealed as she  described her parents’  dangerous home without holding anything back.

Why Didn’t You Just Leave made me shudder.

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October 10, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House

Title: I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My HouseBook cover for I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House by Ben Farthing. Image on cover is a probably Ai-generated image of a large red and white striped circus tent that has been set up beside a dark and foreboding forest. You can see a few branches of an evergreen tree poking out in front of the tent almost as if the tree is about to touch this strange invader. There is light illuminating the tent that probably comes from the upper right corner of the image. Weirdly enough, though, the sky itself is grey and overcast. So this light almost appears to be emanating from the tent fabric itself because there’s no other logical place for it to originate from.

Author: Ben Farthing

Publisher: Self-Published (I think?)

Publication Date: January 23, 2023

Genres: Horror, Paranormal,  Halloween, Contemporary

Length: 106 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Lost in a labyrinth of circus tents…

Dave and his four-year-old, Jacob, find a circus tent in the woods behind their house. A strange voice invites them through the dark doorway.

When they refuse, the tent swallows them.

What follows is a nightmare fleeing through a maze of circus tents. Strange performers lurk inside. They want Dave and his little boy to put on a show. The a shifting figure on a platform high above the trapeze wires.

With Jacob perched in the crook of his arm, Dave determines to outsmart the boss of this dark circus, and escape this horrifying tent.

Content Warning: Clowns. Blood. Murder.

Review:

The woods aren’t as safe as one might think.

It was interesting to see how parenthood had changed Dave. He gave several examples of what he used to do on the weekends before becoming a dad and how he had to give those hobbies and volunteer hours up due to having two young children to raise. Most of the fiction I read focuses on mothers, so I liked seeing what parenthood can feel like from a father’s perspective. Despite his other flaws, Dave seemed like an attentive and loving dad who was genuinely trying to give his children the best childhoods he could.

I struggled with the repetitive nature of this novella. Dave kept sharing the same thoughts with the audience over and over again, and he didn’t always make the most logical decisions. While I wouldn’t expect a character in his situation to be eloquent by any means, I did find myself wishing that he’d spend less time talking to the audience and more time either getting himself and his son out of that creepy circus tent or figuring out why the circus performers were so keen on luring humans into their world.  As much as I wanted to give this one a higher rating, this issue prevented me from feeling comfortable to do so.

With that being said, I did appreciate the writing style of this piece. It reminded me of an adult version of  the old television show Are You Afraid of the Dark. That is to say, it was a little cheesy in a good way and gave the characters plenty of opportunities to escape. The scenes that included scary moments were not emphasized the same way they probably would have been in, say, a Stephen King story. Honestly, I could see a preteen reader who loved horror being into this just as much as the adult audience it was written for, so it could be a good stepping stone into the horror genre for people who don’t mind brief references to blood but mostly want to be scared by imagining what might happen next.

This is the first instalment of a series that can be read in any order. If you do decide to read any of the books in it, though, be sure to check out the author’s explanations of where his ideas come from after the final chapter. The two I have read so far helped me to see their storylines in a new light and were well worth my time. (I will be reviewing I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls in a few weeks, so stay tuned).

I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House was a fun Halloween read.

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September 19, 2024 · 1:00 am

One Day at a Time: A Review of Unloveables

Book cover for Unloveables by Liz Boysha. Image on cover is a chalk drawing of a rat who is standing on its hind legs and has a sad expression on its face. This is a simply drawing, like something a child or an adult who is not an artist would draw. The background is black and looks like a chalkboard. Title: Unloveables

Author: Liz Boysha

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 18, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBTQ+, Romance

Length: 98 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

After the apocalypse, after the Megadrought, the Great Floods, after the Water Wars, the TriPlague, the Midwestern Firestorms; after the Superricane that wiped out the entire East Coast, after the Refugee Crisis and the Great Migrations and whatever wars they fought over that… In a remote corner of what was once Colorado, some people are still just trying to survive.

Content Warning: A fatal car accident. Homophobia. A character who has migraines but no medication for them.  Climate change that makes finding enough food, water, and shade difficult. Brief references to childhood abuse, a past rape, and violence.

Review:

Survival is the name of the game.

A lot of post-apocalyptic fiction focuses on strong, able-bodied adults who either already have the skills they need to survive or are able to quickly learn what they don’t already know, so it was refreshing to read about teens, one of whom is disabled, managing to survive in such an environment for so many years. There were other aspects of the two main characters’ identities that are also underrepresented in this genre, although I think it’s best for other readers to discover most of them gradually just like I did. I enjoyed getting to know Rat thought this was pretty realistic sketch of what kids who grew up in such a dangerous and unpredicatable environment could be like.

With that being said, I would have liked to learn more about the unnamed protagonist. He wasn’t even willing to share his real name with Rat or the audience, much less answer the multitude of other questions I had about his personality and upbringing. While this made sense when I considered how traumatized he was, it also meant that this reader never got to know him as well as I hoped I would. He always flitted around the edges of the conversation and was happy to share tips for finding food or water but never wanted the conversation to drift into anything deeper than that. It would be nice to learn more about him in any sequels that might be written in the future as I only felt like I could describe him in the most general terms by the time I finished reading this.

The romance was subtle and handled nicely. I have not read many romances about two asexual characters before, so I gently stepped away from my preconceived notions of what that might be like and waited to see what would happen. I appreciated the fact that both characters were willing to talk about such things openly and knew what they wanted out of a relationship even though neither one was at all expecting to fall in love when they first met. That’s exactly how I like romance tales to unfold.

Unloveables has left me eager to read more about these characters.

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September 12, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Into the Weeping Waters

Book cover for Into the Weeping Waters by Lee Murray. Image on cover shows a young, pale woman with long, straight dark hair standing up and looking down at her feet. She’s wearing a flowing white nightdress and appears to be standing on the bed of a river or lake. She is submerged in the dark, murky water and is standing near what appears to be wreckage from a crash of some sort. It looks more like a large machine than a boat, though, so maybe it was dumped in the water? You can see a few large wires coming out of this device whatever it is as well as a piece on it that looks like a wagon wheel or possibly a motor of some sort. Title: Into the Weeping Waters

Author: Lee Murray

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 21, 2024

Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Historical

Length: 36 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Taking the train home for Christmas eve, McKenna’s mentor, the Māori prophet Rawiri Temera, is plunged headlong into a ghostly adventure.

Content Warning: Death, emotional and physical trauma, a train accident, and a few brief descriptions of severe injuries. I will not share any gory details, but I will need to discuss these topics in my review.

Review:

Not all tragedies can be avoided.

The rules for how ghosts behave in this world intrigued me. Somehow they knew exactly what they could and couldn’t do from the beginning without anyone explaining it to them. There were a few logical hints about how they came to this knowledge, but I think it’s best to leave the logistics of it for other readers to figure out for themselves. Not every paranormal tale spends much time thinking about what it might be like to be a ghost or how clearly the recall their previous lives, so I appreciated the fact that this one did.

I would have liked to see more plot development in this short story. There simply wasn’t much of it, and what was shared wasn’t explained like it  could have been even in a piece of this brief length. It almost felt like reading a few pages of a full-length novel instead of something that was intended to be a standalone work. That is to say, I liked what I read, but it ended too quickly for me to feel satisfied with what the narrator had to say about what happened.

Some of the most interesting scenes were the ones that described the aftermath of the crash. It was chaotic, of course, but the author also took the time to describe the little moments that could be seared into a person’s brain forever after experiencing such an event. Trauma can be like that sometimes, and I appreciated the way this was written. It was a little gory in a few places, but I could tell that was done to paint a vivid pictures of the horrors Rawiri was witnessing instead of to simply shock the readers.

As a quick aside before I finish off this review, this was set on Christmas Eve but it did not have a Christmas feeling to it at all. If anything, choosing such a typically festive time of the year for it only made the accident more heartbreaking.

Into the Weeping Waters made me shudder. 

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August 22, 2024 · 1:00 am

The Perfect Job: A Review of Pathways to Bolingbrook

Book cover for Pathways to Bolingbrook by William Brinkman. Image on cover shows a realistic drawing of two young women, one black and one Asian, gazing intently at the viewer. They are wearing long-sleeved dark shirts and jackets and look dressed for cool weather (or maybe a zombie attack!)Title: Pathways to Bolingbrook

Author: William Brinkman

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: February 27, 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Historical

Length: 26 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Two desperate women search for answers in this gripping Urban Fantasy double-header.

Miriam craves escape from her dead-end life in Iowa City. A stranger’s offer could make her dream come true… or plunge her into a nightmare.

Sara, reporter for a struggling paper, stumbles on a cryptic recording—one she doesn’t remember making. Could uncovering the truth destroy her career… or her family?

The quiet suburb of Bolingbrook masks dark secrets. Stories about local paranormal activities fill the pages of the local tabloid, Bolingbrook Babbler. Are they just tales or terrifying truths?

Will Miriam embrace a dark path? Will Sara risk everything to expose a secret?

Review:

It takes a special sort of person to accept such dangerous and thankless work.

I enjoyed getting to know Miriam and Sarah in this introduction to their world. They were both intelligent and resourceful women who had already accomplished quite a bit with their lives before being approached by a mysterious man with the sort of job offer most folks will never be aware even exists much less have a chance to try for themselves. While they didn’t meet each other here much to my surprise, I could see a lot of similarities between their personalities that made me wonder what they’d think about each other at some point in the future when the plot does bring them together.

While I totally understand that this was written as an introduction to a series, it would have been nice to have more conflict. Almost all of it was devoted to introducing the two protagonists, briefly describing what their lives had been like so far, and giving hints about why they might decide to take on these new roles. Yes, it was interesting and completely necessary to have all of that background information, but it also meant that the characters didn’t have much to wrestle with during the brief time I knew them. I would have loved to see how they both handled some sort of small problem that could foreshadow what to expect from them in the future.

With that being said, I did enjoy the world building and little snippets of foreshadowing that occurred. Bolingbrook honestly sounds like a rough place to live, but it also seems like it could be full of wonderful surprises for Sarah and Miriam. My hope is that this will provide them plenty of conflict in later instalments as I thought there was a lot of promise here that hadn’t quite been realized yet.

Pathways to Bolingbrook was interesting.

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August 15, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Tiny Forgotten Wishes

Book cover for Tiny Forgotten Wishes by Janky Fluffy. Image on cover is a drawing of a human brain made with a pink pen or marker. In the upper right hand corner is a smaller and less vibrant drawing of a single pink rose. Title: Tiny Forgotten Wishes

Author: Janky Fluffy

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: June 20, 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal

Length: 58 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Little Defective Things: Mother and Father must protect their ordinary daughter from the evils of perfectionism.
Forgotten Toys: She is not a toy and must save herself.
A Pretty Apocalypse: Social media causes the kingdom’s collapse.
Hair Like Starlight, Eyes Like Dreams: A man has a near-death experience and meets an angel.
21 Broken Christmases: The Grim Reaper is a woman and is in charge of more than just death.
Leftover Food for Wellness: A troll meets humans for dinner.
Salt’s Real Kiss: The magic man promises beauty for a price, and Salt refuses to pay.
Of Butterflies & Ghosts: Bobby enters the rundown funeral home and discovers the truth about his wife.
Another Curse of Unlimited Wishes: The genie falls in love.
Her Turquoise Reunion: She survived the most brutal school with kindness.
Tiny Songs for Nocturnal Beings: The ghouls come for their yearly feeding.
Fleeing Monsters: Emelia must survive the monsters. But who are the real monsters?

Content Warning: Death, a cult, ableist characters. I won’t discuss any of these topics in my review.

Review:

Think of this collection like a sampling platter of different worlds and characters. A nibble here and there may fill you up.

Trolls aren’t very common in modern fantasy stories from what I’ve observed, so “Leftover Food for Wellness” piqued my interest. Figuring out why someone would purposefully seek one out in this day and age didn’t take very long, but it did give me food for thought as the arrogant main character made one bad decision after the next. I’ll leave it up to other readers to discover what those choices were and how they turned out for him, but I liked seeing his reaction to getting his wish. There’s definitely something to be said for making wishes come true…even the ones that never should have been made in the first place.

As intrigued as I was by the premise of “A Pretty Apocalypse,” the plot holes in it made it difficult for me to remain invested in what was happening. Social media has downsides to be sure, but I wasn’t convinced that this alone could cause society to collapse. While all of the stories in this collection were purposefully written to be short and sweet, this was one of multiple examples I thought would have been better if there had been more time to explain what was happening in them.

“Another Curse of Unlimited Wishes” was refreshing. Of course genies should have the chance to fall in love the way humans do! There were a few fun twists in this one which was a little surprising given how short it was. I will tip my cap to the author for pulling that off and for finally making the genie the main character of this sort of tale. That doesn’t happen often enough in this genre for my tastes, so I was glad to see it here.

Tiny Forgotten Wishes was my first introduction to this author’s work, and I look forward to reading more in the future.

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August 8, 2024 · 1:00 am

For the Sake of Knowledge: A Review of Grim Future

Book cover for Grim Future by Nick S. Nicholas. Image on cover shows the silhoutte of an adult human standing on a hill after dark. They can see part of the sky illuminated either by yellow and purple northern lights or by the last vestiges of sunlight as dusk ends and night begins. Or maybe it’s caused by both! It is too dark in this scene to show the age, sex, or race of this person other than their adult stature. So imagine yourself there if you wish. Title: Grim Future

Author: Nick S Nicholas

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: June 24, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 31 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Grim Future is a short story with the feel of an Indiana Jones meets the Mummy vs Space Invaders! Alec Kennedy, his love interest Rhonda Williams, and their expedition team’s leader Nathan Gray embark on an adventure to Egypt, hoping to discover an artifact that elevates them and their university sponsors into the international archeological spotlight. What they find will change the world in a way they never expected…

Content Warning: Murder, Sexism (I will discuss the latter briefly in my review)

Review:

Tombs are a window to the past. What sort of past that might be is an entirely different question altogether.

The character development was handled nicely. Alec’s self-absorption and difficulty with noticing subtle changes in his social environment quietly influenced every decision he made, and I was curious to see how he’d react to this expedition given that he was working in a group and would have to share the glory if anything of note was discovered. This was a pattern that repeated itself with other characters, too, whose flaws only made them more interesting to me because of how important they were to future plot twists. While I can’t say that I particularly liked most of the characters here, that is not a bad thing by any means. Honestly, unlikeable people can be the best options for certain types of storylines, and this is one of them.

While I could make an educated guess about what they were seeking, I do wish the ending had been longer and included more details about the antagonists’ motivations for behaving the way they did. The beginning and middle portions were so well written that I was surprised to see things suddenly be wrapped up the way that they were. There was a lot of space here for exposition, and I would have happily given a much higher rating if even if a paragraph or two of it had been added to explain what their precise goals were.

With that being said, I loved the way Mr. Nicholas turned certain science fiction tropes about female characters and what their roles should be in this genre on their head. I was a little concerned about where this was headed at first based on Alec’s one-dimensional approach to interacting with his love interest,  but I’m glad I kept reading anyway. Just because things appear to be one way in the opening scene does not at all mean they will still feel the same way in the final one. Keep that in mind as you read if your initial reaction is the same as mine was.

Grim Future was a wild ride.

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