Gremlins? The wicked hand of fate? Bad luck? Or simply a random event that’s not personal at all? On Friday, I rose at my customary hour (between 07:00 and 08:30 now I’ve retired from the ranks of the wage slaves). My Mac had a little notification, top right, advising that some updates hadn’t been installed. …
Continue reading When Inanimate Objects Conspire Against You!
Subtitled ‘180 Bizarre True Stories of How Dumb Humans Have Met Their Maker’, The Darwin Awards is not a book to read in one sitting, unless you wish to join award nominees by dying from laughing too loud and too long. There are some wonderful tales here; a few are apocryphal but most have been …
Continue reading The Darwin Awards, by Wendy Northcutt: #BookReview.
A virginal, shy, geeky, young woman falls for a broken-hearted medic on a TV reality show. This comedy romance is peppered with characters that are probably common to this televisual form of torture sold as entertainment. I don’t watch it; it’s not ‘real’ in any proper sense of the word, and generally brings out the …
Continue reading The Leftover, by Brooke Williams, Reviewed.
Writing is such an odd occupation, requiring peculiar minds combined with unusual personalities. All writers are weird; that’s a given. We know we’re strange, some of us peculiar to the point of near insanity, others merely eccentric. We’re definitely an odd bunch. But there’s a strange beauty, a wonderful schizophrenia about writing, especially when the …
Continue reading Perils and Pleasures of Penmanship.
This is satirical, dystopian science fiction taking a brutal swipe at the media, politicians, conspiracy theorists, security experts and the military. All of it richly deserved. The writing is good, characterisation is thorough, creating archetypes rather than indulging in stereotypes as is so often the case with books of this type. The humour is hard, …
Continue reading NSA, by Benny Neylon, Reviewed.
Humour with vampires: those who love the genre will really get their teeth into this. (Sorry, unforgivable bloody pun! – And again!) This is a well-constructed short that manages to pack in the conventions of the vampire world. I love the idea of the psychologist treating vampires for their problems. This story is told from …
Continue reading Until Death Do Us Part, by Lynda Hilburn, Reviewed.
Mike Dickenson’s ‘IQ84’ is a timely satire on American values and culture. Written in the style of a humorous pulp thriller, it captures the banality, self-obsession, materialism and superficiality that characterise the USA for so many of us who live in the rest of the world. The recent populist backlash against the establishment that has …
Continue reading IQ84, by Mike Dickenson, Reviewed.
For some time, I’ve been tempted to run a series of questions here. I’ve serious issues I’d love to open for debate, silly matters that might cause amusement, trivial irritations that cause me grief, and fairly vital matters that demand answers. I’m opening the series with a minor peeve. It might result in some relief …
Continue reading I’d Like to Know: Why? #1
A fun story, this. The writer’s dilemma: freedom of expression and the associated poverty of writing what you want, or fame and the shackles the publisher will attach to your imagination? Required to write a formulaic tale to a strict deadline, the hapless author finds life gets in the way of creativity as family vies …
Continue reading Silent Plight, by Jill Province, Reviewed.
This series offers help for writers to make their work more varied, accessible, interesting, accurate and effective by exploring similar and dissimilar words. It also helps language learners understand some of the finer points of English usage. A good thesaurus gives substitutes for the idea of a word, but not all suggestions are true synonyms. Context …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #18
This collection of letters written by an American novelist to her family and friends whilst living in Hull, England, during 1999/2000, is, essentially, a very personal book. Having said that, it’s also a book for everyone interested in the cultures, habits and attitudes of both nations. I came across it via Facebook; one of my …
Continue reading Letters From Hull, by Linda Swift, Reviewed.
An unusual book, in that the longest ‘chapter’ containing prose is the introduction by the author. However, this amusing preface says all that’s needed to introduce readers to the lists of absurd, improbable, insane and downright insulting names that parents have saddled their offspring with and some companies have labelled themselves as. The phrase ‘A …
Continue reading Yes, I Named My Daughter Gaylord Focker, by Joseph Joel, Reviewed.
There are stories from much of the world here, though the bulk concern East Asia, Australia and South America. The author uses simple everyday language to convey his adventures in often exotic locations. The style is easy and peppered with humour, humanity and the occasional caution. This is travel on a budget, so we’re treated …
Continue reading Around the World in 80 Tales, by Dave Tomlinson, Reviewed.
As I contributed one of the 26 stories contained within the covers of this collection, I feel I can only make my comments public here, on my blog. As a reviewer who has signed the True Review Pledge, it would be unethical for me to review it elsewhere. However, I feel I have a right …
Continue reading To Hull and Back 2015 Anthology, Edited by Christopher Fielden, Reviewed.
A short while ago, I entered a short story into a contest. As usual, I then forgot all about it. A few days ago, I received an email to tell me my story, whilst not a winner, had been shortlisted and was to feature along with 25 others. It’s a collection of humorous stories written …
Continue reading Featured in a New Anthology.
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Stuart Aken 