“Alia went still as she remembered exactly where she’d seen him before. It swept out from her childhood memories like canyon debris washed out by a flash flood …”
Memories have power. In Alia’s case these memories were triggered at a point in her life where a choice needed choosing. That choice brings her deeper into lore and traditions she loves. Following those traditions and that lore has the potential of making her more of an outsider than she is already.
While reading I wondered if McKinley was Navajo/Hopi himself. At the very least he must have researched the matter. Skinwalkers at one time worked for the benefit of the people but are now considered evil. Alia also believes they are evil until she discovers that everything depends on what side you are on.
Brian Patrick McKinley clearly has a talent for writing and has added to the joys of my reading obsession.
Merriam-Webster defines mojo as: “a power that may seem magical and that allows someone to be very effective, successful, etc.” Bad Mojo is certainly something Marcus suffers from during the three days that we walk with him.
“The cards were screaming at him to hop a plane to anywhere else … Right now they told him to change his fucking direction and fast.”
But Marcus’ father is dying. If not for that, he would have stayed away from his dysfunctional family another ten years. His mom and dad are conservative Christians, his cousin is a blood-bag to a vampire and his sister (who begged him to come home) keeps away from Marcus. He is thought, by his family, to be dirty and evil because he practices magic.
Marcus’ relatives aren’t the only dysfunctional people we meet. Old friends try to mess with him, and some of their requests are pretty unfriendly. All, in all, the tarot cards seem to have been correct, this time, in their predictions.
Scott McCoskey has written about a mess of a person and done it in a manner that I enjoyed. This is a self-published book and there were flaws, but McCoskey’s style makes up for that. Bad Mojo Blues is a fun crime-filled novella set in an unnamed small town in South-West New Mexico.
Alan Scott has written a wonderfully funny and dark story about murder and mayhem.
I suppose it could be read as a warning about the consequences of training our soldiers too well. The thought did not enter my mind until the classroom situation. But, yeah, that could work.
A man with his own brand of conscience and his pet hamster, TF. A killer with a pet hamster. Not much like the hamster I used to own and adore. SCoT-01 is a fun and terrifying person I would hope to always keep on my side. His hamster, too.
“Well, it’s funny that you should ask. I do a little proofreading, sort of a family thing. My father did it before me, so I decided to carry on the tradition. Editing. Marking up manuscripts with red pen. Hence all the books.”
“I just had a marvelous thought. You can proofread my book.”
“Hang on,” he said, startled, “I wouldn’t want to presume on your acquaintance.”
“Don’t think of it,” she said. “I’m not at all offended by your asking.”
“Thing was, the westward portage rope was attached to Billie’s harness, and Billie, for all her advantages as a draft animal, is about as smart as damp moss when it comes to things like “noticing external stimuli.” She’s a genework Indricothere(link by ed) that my Uncle Ren and I bought from a fly-by firm about six years back—a sort of precursor to the rhinoceros, and one of the largest land mammals ever to walk on the planet. When she put down her foot, the ground shook. There were no predators that could take her down and no threats that she recognized as worth giving a damn about, all of which combined to mean that there wasn’t much that could distract her from the essential task of eating her way through the foliage of the world. All nine tons of her continued plodding relentlessly forward, her massive teeth stripping branches as she walked. Her grazing license typed her as a firebreak, preventing fires by clearing out all the dead stuff before it could go up. It was more than halfway true, and it hadn’t caught us any trouble yet.”
“No, boss,” said Snix. “You get something better. You’re the commander of this operation, so you, uh …” He looked around and then picked up something from under the driver’s seat of the Camaro. “You get this special Inter-Modal Communications Module. With it, you can monitor and direct our incursion.”
He handed me what looked like an espresso cup.
“This looks like an espresso cup,” I said.
“It’s designed to look like that,” said Snix. “Camouflage, boss. It’s all about camouflage. Okay, men. Are you ready?” (Christopher Bunn)
Hilarious and irreverent short-story about Santa and the elves.
Across the table, Ellie Colson’s bosses laughed what might be the last big laugh of their lives. She forgave them. They didn’t know they were joking about the end of the world.
She smiled thinly. Rawlings, her direct superior, chuckled and swabbed his puffy hand across the table, as if he were working at an imaginary water spot. Dr. Armen laughed and clutched his gut, as if he were afraid it might bounce away. Jesper Mason just smiled. Like Ellie, he hadn’t been introduced by rank – Rawlings hadn’t even mentioned which org he belonged to, which meant he was a field hand, and a useful one. She recognized him vaguely. Might have seen him around the stacks once or twice. Mason had told the joke, something about Spanish flu. Ellie hadn’t been listening. She’d been thinking about the transmission rate in Rawlings’ printout.
The laughter stopped. Conversation resumed. The room was bare and windowless but their voices carried no echo, dying in the small space like lost moths. It wasn’t that these men weren’t smart; they had enough degrees between them to paper a den. It wasn’t that they lacked dedication; she would soon prove herself least dedicated of any of them.
These are the words that hooked me. Something about Robertson’s writing drew me into his post-apocalyptic chaos until the end, an ending I appreciated.
Why did Ellie risk her life to try to save Chip Billips? Well, as she saw it, she was already dead. In fact, both of them were already dead. Their bodies just hadn’t finished the process yet. The likelihood of escaping this surprising and terrifying new plague seemed highly unlikely. But why Chip? It certainly wasn’t because Chip lived in a convenient place.
New York, a city with a population of about 8.49 million people packed into an area measuring 468.90 sq miles (1,214 km²). Needing to chase down a person in a tight place like that makes for perfect post-apocalysm. Robertson paints both the atmosphere between Ellie and Chip and the atmosphere in the city as bleak, confused and fearful. With his magic, Robertson helped me believe in the plague’s progression and people’s reaction to it.
When authors like Robertson come along, I find it does not matter to me if snags turn up. Yet none did. I loved it.
A common theme in all of these short stories seems to be bullying of one sort or another. Needing to dominate others is part of our human history. Countries bully other countries into subservience and oblivion. Two countries are well-known for their tendencies to bully militarily weaker countries while decrying other nations when these do the same. Tej Turner shows us the one-on-one form of bullying and the mob-on-one kind of bullying in his semi-short stories.
All of these short stories are more or less stand alone stories. They are all tied together by Frelia. Frelia has an interesting power that could cause her death if the ones who “rule” it find out about her having that power. But bullies have been part of Frelia’s past and she will not be forced into obedience just because some mysterious stranger tells her she has to. That decision is an essential one to the stories of Pikel, Kev, Tristan, Neal, Namda, Halan, Sam, Pag, Faye and Tilly. Frelia’s intervention changes lives, hopefully for the better.
Mobs with a charismatic leader are a frightening thing. Poor Tilly has the great misfortune of having one of those in her school and she has the kind of aura that many victims end up with. Sadly, this aura attracts predators like Jarvis and his gang.
Bullying (for whatever reason) drags your sense of self-worth down until it seems impossible to gain any of it back. The bullied person becomes so used to people being mean that trust is difficult to come by. At one point things became so desperate for her that Tilly was ready to kill herself. Being treated like a verbal and/or physical punching bag almost every day makes her need to be true to herself something I both admire and understand. Poor little Tilly. Tej Turner made me want to hug her.
“They carried on kicking her. In the face, the head, the stomach. They stamped on her legs, and one of them even spared a moment to spit at her. I desperately tried to intervene, but there were too many and I couldn’t reach them. They were killing her, but they carried on regardless. So long as the rest of them were doing it they seemed to feel it was okay, and none of them wanted to be the first to hesitate.”
In one way or another we all seem to become part of various kinds of mobs.
Magical Entities is a cute story that seems to intend to teach children the importance of keeping their promises even when keeping them is difficult.
Radpa, has chosen Klarys to take over his store. But she must prove herself worthy of this task. Klarys is only nine when she begins this life-long journey. Sometimes she falls short of her potential. But that is OK because Radpa just expects her to keep on trying. And she does.
There is no violence, no swearing and no sexual content. I have set it as children’s literature.
I had a grand time reading Street of Lost Gods. Mr. Lewis’ writing was a delightful combination of humor and mystery. Rax did the Mautheri eaters proud with his handling of Angel Arden.
The Thief-City is an idea I haven’t seen before. Thieves of all kinds of races, human and alien, are somehow brought to the city by the city. So too are gods who are losing their believers.
Other than that, Street of Lost Gods is a mystery. As the Thief-City is a city of thieves of all sorts, the citizens aren’t exactly upstanding people. Instead, they are a collection of the underbelly of the various societies of Mr. Lewis’ imagination.
Street of Lost Gods is a short-story with a whole lot of fun packed into it. Definitely recommended.
Humans are herd animals with a strong need to belong to some kind of group. Markhat is seemingly a loner, but as The Mister Trophy develops, I got more a sense of loneliness. The ending cinched my suspicion.
Markhat is a detective. He finds what is lost and returns whatever is lost to the person looking for it. The race of his clients is of no matter, as long as their currency is good. When The Misters come a-knocking Markhat is reminded of their recent war and worries about his survivability. But these trolls are honorable creatures, and any deal made is a deal that must be upheld. Whether Markhat inhabits the same kind of honor is a question Markhat finds himself needing an answer to.
The opposition this time is the half-dead. Half-deads are a sort of vampire. These post-humans are of the decaying sort in the sense that there is an odor of the grave about them. They aren’t healthy looking, but they aren’t zombie-like either. As post-humans they have strength and agility unlike regular humans. Half-deads aren’t people you want to mess with. But that is exactly what Markhat needs to do in order to fulfill his deal with the Misters.
Fortunately, being human doesn’t mean that he is without resources. From the story it does not seem that Markhat has any super-natural/para-normal powers, but he does have access to them. His latest source surprises and frightens him. Some of his preconceived ideas are torn down and Markhat reevaluates his perception of reality.
The Mister Trophy was short, action-packed and fun to read. Recommended.
I tried to find a link to all of the authors in A Forest of Dreams. As you see below, I couldn’t find them all.
Allan B Anderson: The Trouble with Dragons: This is a funny and cute story all about perspective. In The Trouble With Dragons we find a dragon, a town and knights.
Rose Blackthorn: When Darkness Falls, The Light: Flint Harmattan walks into the camp of Zaelryn and Vaeryn. Vaeryn is suffering from PTSD (an almost constant dissociation). Zaelryn makes sure she stays alive.
Cynthia Booth & Roy C Booth: Trespassers: Jenny, who is on her way to a job, stops at a cafè when her car becomes unsafe to drive. She is offered a ride to a safe place to stay.
Dave D. Burgh: The Bell: This is a really great and strange take on eternal life. Uldo and Emin are fun characters.
Jesse Duckworth: Runaway Clydesdale: A two-headed man, by the name of Clyde and Dale, is an exhibit at a freak show. He grows tired of this life and decides to run away.
Mani Fadn: Songs For Dead Hearts: People getting what they ask for isn’t always a good thing. Poor “young man” (all we ever know him as). A victim of his own abilities and the fickleness of the other villagers.
Jan Goeb: Accounting for Change: Here we find a tale that is about the first days of vampire life.
R.A.M. Graham: Dancing Doll: RAM Graham was the reason I bought A Forest of Dreams. I loved her story about Gwenmere. Dancing Doll surprised me. I love that. A little girl REALLY tries to listen to what her mother has told her to do. She really does. But we all know how tempting some things can be.
Rick Hipps: Squire William’s New Charge: What a great squire to have. Squire Williams is cast in the “teen-ager doing something his elders aren’t able to” role. Squire William’s New Charge is a fairly dark fairy-tale.
Axel Kohagen: Mudwife: I like these slightly creepy stories about consequences. Perhaps it could be said about this story that one should not trust first impressions and maybe even that it might pay sometimes to be less curious.
R. Scott McCoy: Only a Nightmare: Only a Nightmare is hilarious and creepy. Once again, things did not turn out how I expected.
Verna McKinnon: Dragon Toast: Dragon Toast is about the life of familiars and a dragon baby. It is adorable. Tupa is the cutest familiar ever. There is magic, action and adventure. My call is that Dragon Toast is a children’s story.
Angela Meadon: Intrepid Dawn. Not a children’s tale. Nope. More for the Young Adults who are able to read dark stories about monsters from the depths of the ocean.
Michael Merriam: All the Leaves Your Bed. I loved this little story about death, environmentalism and tree-magic.
Druscilla Morgan: The Last Unicorn: This is the story of the bunch that fit me the least. Rufus Armstrong is in charge of what appears to be a dangerous horse with a bump on its forehead.
James Pratt: King Kong Died for Your Sins. Oh my god. King Kong Died for Your Sins is a perfect portrayal of certain parts of our society. James Pratt nailed it. Absolutely hilarious.
Dyfedd Rex: Weapon of Mass Demoralization Test: Another story that I really liked. We get jaded old hunters, the military, overconfident magic-users, succubi and nuns.
Maggie Secara: Jack’s Day Out: We meet an old story-book character some years after the event. Jack and his brother Perian are on their way to visit the Lady when Perian disappears. Some of the other characters from the old story turn up as well.
Daminsen Shentay: In the Weft: Some shopkeepers are a little more dangerous to rob than other shopkeepers. Mitch should have been more careful about checking out the details of this job before agreeing to take it.
Most of these short stories were really great. There were two or three that didn’t fit me all that well, but I imagine they were still well-written. I find it difficult to know if a story that does not fit me is well-written. However, I do recommend A Forest of Dreams if nothing else but for Graham, Merriman, Rex, McCoy and Burgh’s stories. Those were my favorites.
So, how does an assassin go about killing a ghost? Scott Marlowe has certainly thrown his assassin a seemingly impossible job. Getting rid of a necromancer, who was supposed to be dead, is a task fraught with danger for our unnamed hero.
Killing the Dead is an action story with a happy feeling to it. Yes, there is fighting and death and necromancy, but Killing the Dead stays far away from being a dark fantasy. Definitely recommended.
Never underestimate the power of the right sort of alcohol. Especially if your life is on the line. Abelard discovers the importance of a well-stocked wine-cellar during his dinner with the person who apparently is going to be his assassin.
Scott Marlowe has written a funny and fun short-story.
Editing and cover design by Tim C. Taylor Cover images by KireevArt and fotola70
Garrisonis a military fantasy in novella format. It is set in another time and place with pre-industrial technology and strange creatures. Whether these people are human, I do not know. That is just a presumption on my part.
Von was the most interesting person of this story. His exact role within the company wasn’t completely clear to me. While regular soldier seems to have been his official title, his role was more likely as some kind of troubleshooter. New soldiers saw him as a father-figure. Being just another soldier seems to have given him an in that was not open to the officers. The two newbies were highly visible in Garrison, but their role seemed to be as supporting characters to Von.
I liked Von and I enjoyed reading Garrison and Nigel Edwards’ writing.
humanitysdarkerside 