What do you think?
Rate this book
Dial M For Monkey: Flash Fiction & Short Stories with a twist
Adam Maxwell's first collection of short stories is inventive, funny, dark, and hugely entertaining. Effortlessly fusing pop culture, gunplay, and simians, Dial M For Monkey contains a vibrant mixture of short stories - and short-short stories including 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' which featured in McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
124 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 26, 2006
5 people are currently reading
618 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 20, 2016
This was short and sweet. Maxwell is funny, random, very English and disturbingly funny. After reading this, I asked myself why I put this off until now. Adam, you crazy monkey, excellent work on your first book!
May 16, 2011
This was a quick and entertaining read, a collection of short stories of such warped wit that I laughed aloud at some of them. I especially liked the one about Gary Barlow...
December 2, 2016
I picked up Dial M for Monkey after having parked a book that I was struggling with and read a couple of short stories. It might be real life telling me I need to stop escaping into a book for a while given we're in the process of moving house along with the other things that demand attention as a working mum! But I wasn't prepared to let go of my reading escapism so easily!
I was actually looking for another short story on my kindle to read. I wasn't bothered what, just something to read and Adam Maxwell's set of flash fiction stories appeared in my search and I thought why not! I've come to enjoy flash fiction after subscribing to Louise Jensen's Fabricating Fiction blog where she frequently posts a very short story inspired by a photo through the Friday Fictioneers.
Dial M for Murder is very different to my usual read, all the stories are a few pages long so I could pick up and put down easily when I had the time and inclination. Each story is entertaining with an ingenious and funny title; you would never guess what "Shooting Jelly With a Shotgun" was about!!
Not every story is crime related but there is pick pocketing, murder, a wee bit of sex (!), and it did make me laugh out loud at points!!
I loved the monkeys on the underground, you have to read that one. And as for selling a house to chickens!!! This author has a very strange but entertaining sense of humour.
I wouldn't have discovered this book if the author hadn't contacted Crimebookjunkie for a review of The Dali Deception. I really enjoyed that book and this is entirely different but still an enjoyable read! I'll be definitely be reading more from Adam Maxwell!
I was actually looking for another short story on my kindle to read. I wasn't bothered what, just something to read and Adam Maxwell's set of flash fiction stories appeared in my search and I thought why not! I've come to enjoy flash fiction after subscribing to Louise Jensen's Fabricating Fiction blog where she frequently posts a very short story inspired by a photo through the Friday Fictioneers.
Dial M for Murder is very different to my usual read, all the stories are a few pages long so I could pick up and put down easily when I had the time and inclination. Each story is entertaining with an ingenious and funny title; you would never guess what "Shooting Jelly With a Shotgun" was about!!
Not every story is crime related but there is pick pocketing, murder, a wee bit of sex (!), and it did make me laugh out loud at points!!
I loved the monkeys on the underground, you have to read that one. And as for selling a house to chickens!!! This author has a very strange but entertaining sense of humour.
I wouldn't have discovered this book if the author hadn't contacted Crimebookjunkie for a review of The Dali Deception. I really enjoyed that book and this is entirely different but still an enjoyable read! I'll be definitely be reading more from Adam Maxwell!
February 26, 2012
First, the good: Maxwell is brilliant when it comes to creativity. The scenarios he comes up with are funny, interesting, and keep you moving along nicely. The writing is fun to read, and it's easy to move happily from one piece to the next and be done with the whole thing before you know it. If you want something funny to read during commercials on TV (I know, how dare I, eh?) or between loads of laundry or during your bus ride to and from work, this is a good choice.
Now, the bad: Some of the pieces end pretty abruptly, and that left me a little upset at times, but, hey, it was a free read, so how can I complain? Right? I call these 'pieces' rather than stories because most of them are more like skits or character sketches than stories. They also have the feel of first or second drafts. So, if you're a writer, you might be distracted by obvious errors like like words appearing words several times because the author didn't take the time to revise, revise, revise. [And, yes, I repeated those words on purpose.]
I haven't read anything else by Adam Maxwell, but this book left me feeling okay about downloading and trying another. I like this guy's sense of humor -- and for the laughs and smiles I got from Dial M, I'm happy to overlook a few typos and missed opportunities for revision here and there.
[Edit: I wanted to mention also that one of the things that bothered me about these pieces by Maxwell is that he also tends toward the joke/punchline effect that can irk short story readers to no end. You know that old technique -- tell the story as if it were a joke then hit the reader with the punchline at the end? Yeah, he does that a lot.]
Now, the bad: Some of the pieces end pretty abruptly, and that left me a little upset at times, but, hey, it was a free read, so how can I complain? Right? I call these 'pieces' rather than stories because most of them are more like skits or character sketches than stories. They also have the feel of first or second drafts. So, if you're a writer, you might be distracted by obvious errors like like words appearing words several times because the author didn't take the time to revise, revise, revise. [And, yes, I repeated those words on purpose.]
I haven't read anything else by Adam Maxwell, but this book left me feeling okay about downloading and trying another. I like this guy's sense of humor -- and for the laughs and smiles I got from Dial M, I'm happy to overlook a few typos and missed opportunities for revision here and there.
[Edit: I wanted to mention also that one of the things that bothered me about these pieces by Maxwell is that he also tends toward the joke/punchline effect that can irk short story readers to no end. You know that old technique -- tell the story as if it were a joke then hit the reader with the punchline at the end? Yeah, he does that a lot.]
July 30, 2009
Great fun. Very English. Wonderfully compact. Deceptively simple - as in the writing never over-reaches itself but remains elegant, original and well-framed.
While the cover and the blurb gives the impression that Maxwell relies on shock-effect to get his ideas across, I don't believe that this is especially the case. His key thing is ideas. Each of these tales pivots on a single, powerfully imaginative idea. Reading the set, I consider Maxwell to be the kind of writer who constantly imagines the unusual behind the ordinary. The most congenial aspect of the book is the way that imagined explanations are used to impart a sense of wonder to the mundane. It is tempting to give examples, but that would ruin the book for the next reader, as these stories are almost entirely based on their core ideas. That's not to say, however, that the writing, phrasing and sentences are not fine in themselves. There's a lot of description here that leaps off the page with its originality and subtlety.
More than a few of the tales rely on first person narration, meta-comment and a kind of looping structure of the cliff hanger sort: 'Here I am in this weird situation, now how did I get here?' It's carried off so well, though, that it is a joy to read. It may even become something of a trademark. Hardly a dud in the pack - though one story did rely on a revelation that I have read elsewhere, in an Ian McEwan's, 'The Child in Time', I think. That time it involved a strap repeatedly hitting the wall of a train carriage...
While the cover and the blurb gives the impression that Maxwell relies on shock-effect to get his ideas across, I don't believe that this is especially the case. His key thing is ideas. Each of these tales pivots on a single, powerfully imaginative idea. Reading the set, I consider Maxwell to be the kind of writer who constantly imagines the unusual behind the ordinary. The most congenial aspect of the book is the way that imagined explanations are used to impart a sense of wonder to the mundane. It is tempting to give examples, but that would ruin the book for the next reader, as these stories are almost entirely based on their core ideas. That's not to say, however, that the writing, phrasing and sentences are not fine in themselves. There's a lot of description here that leaps off the page with its originality and subtlety.
More than a few of the tales rely on first person narration, meta-comment and a kind of looping structure of the cliff hanger sort: 'Here I am in this weird situation, now how did I get here?' It's carried off so well, though, that it is a joy to read. It may even become something of a trademark. Hardly a dud in the pack - though one story did rely on a revelation that I have read elsewhere, in an Ian McEwan's, 'The Child in Time', I think. That time it involved a strap repeatedly hitting the wall of a train carriage...
September 10, 2014
Only 60+ pages; this quick read can be started and finished in well under an hour, and that alone makes it not a waste of time. The stories are a mix of "high impact" and "needs an editor" - I kept wanting to revise or strike his last lines, over and over.
Maxwell sticks to a format of "Here's the story, wait, no there's a twist coming up, TWIST", expanding it sometimes to "Here's the story, wait, no there's a twist coming up, wait for it, wait for it, really I mean it, keep waiting, TWIST, he he he" for most of the collection. Most of the characters are middle-aged, blue collar, London-area blokes, and a lot of the humor is crude ("He got hit in the balls with a block, lol" type of stuff.)
Probably the best are "I Almost Spanked A Monkey", "Sprouts" (which is one of the few near-genre stories in the book), and "Is That To Go?". All use Maxwell's preferred format successfully, and none go on too long.
The longer pieces aren't quite as good as the flash, IMO, but at the same time Maxwell brings in an earthy, working class, feel to his fiction that I don't often see in lit flash. It's an important perspective because it's not often published, and some of the pieces do work very well. Don't read it because it's the best ever (it's not) but it is a valuable use of an hour, even if you're only learning what not to do yourself.
Maxwell sticks to a format of "Here's the story, wait, no there's a twist coming up, TWIST", expanding it sometimes to "Here's the story, wait, no there's a twist coming up, wait for it, wait for it, really I mean it, keep waiting, TWIST, he he he" for most of the collection. Most of the characters are middle-aged, blue collar, London-area blokes, and a lot of the humor is crude ("He got hit in the balls with a block, lol" type of stuff.)
Probably the best are "I Almost Spanked A Monkey", "Sprouts" (which is one of the few near-genre stories in the book), and "Is That To Go?". All use Maxwell's preferred format successfully, and none go on too long.
The longer pieces aren't quite as good as the flash, IMO, but at the same time Maxwell brings in an earthy, working class, feel to his fiction that I don't often see in lit flash. It's an important perspective because it's not often published, and some of the pieces do work very well. Don't read it because it's the best ever (it's not) but it is a valuable use of an hour, even if you're only learning what not to do yourself.
September 7, 2016
Read: March 2016
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
There are twenty stories in just over 100 pages so each story is very short and this book is a nice, quick read. The stories themselves are all well written but some suffer from being so very short that it is hard to really get into them. I definitely prefer the slightly longer, more surreal tales included here.
The individual ratings for each story are:
Happiness is a Warm Gun - 2.5/5 stars
Shooting Jelly with a Shotgun- 3/5 stars
Jim Morrison's Leg - 3.5/5 stars
I Almost Spanked a Monkey - 3.5/5 stars
The Holy Face of Gary Barlow -4/5 stars FAVOURITE
The Beginning - 2.5/5 stars
Sherry For Breakfast - 4.5/5 stars FAVOURITE
Sprouts- 3/5 stars
Rudolph Redux - 3/5 stars
Special K and the Yorkshire Terrier - 2/5 stars
A Stroll Along the Prom, Prom, Prom - 3/5 stars
Sandwiches -2/5 stars
Self Assembly - 2/5 stars
Is That To Go? - 3/5 stars
It Happens - 3/5 stars
To Let: Ground Floor Flat - 2.5/5 stars
The Dangers of eBay - 3/5 stars
The Things We Said Today -2/5 stars
Noise Abatement - 3.5/5 stars
The Cock ain't Gonna Like That - 3.5/5 stars
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
There are twenty stories in just over 100 pages so each story is very short and this book is a nice, quick read. The stories themselves are all well written but some suffer from being so very short that it is hard to really get into them. I definitely prefer the slightly longer, more surreal tales included here.
The individual ratings for each story are:
Happiness is a Warm Gun - 2.5/5 stars
Shooting Jelly with a Shotgun- 3/5 stars
Jim Morrison's Leg - 3.5/5 stars
I Almost Spanked a Monkey - 3.5/5 stars
The Holy Face of Gary Barlow -4/5 stars FAVOURITE
The Beginning - 2.5/5 stars
Sherry For Breakfast - 4.5/5 stars FAVOURITE
Sprouts- 3/5 stars
Rudolph Redux - 3/5 stars
Special K and the Yorkshire Terrier - 2/5 stars
A Stroll Along the Prom, Prom, Prom - 3/5 stars
Sandwiches -2/5 stars
Self Assembly - 2/5 stars
Is That To Go? - 3/5 stars
It Happens - 3/5 stars
To Let: Ground Floor Flat - 2.5/5 stars
The Dangers of eBay - 3/5 stars
The Things We Said Today -2/5 stars
Noise Abatement - 3.5/5 stars
The Cock ain't Gonna Like That - 3.5/5 stars
February 17, 2013
Weird. However, I really liked how compact the stories are; it becomes a real page-turner, as you always want to read 'only one more' before going back to work, and then one more, and so on, and after few hours you are already finished with the book. Several stories are wonderful in their conciseness and unpredictability, yet several others seemed simply weird and nothing more.
March 27, 2013
I loved it. This was my first collection of flash fiction and I fell in love with the genre. Maxwell's style is "very British" if that tells you anything and themes move from surreal and crazy to realistic and scary.
June 26, 2014
Very short short stories. Each story revolves around an idea that is often quirky and funny, but not often developed to its full. Some of these ideas (the vet robbery for example) wouldn't look bad in a Guy Ritchie film. I'm curious to read more from the author.
September 7, 2010
Great collection of short stories. Many are darkly funny and all are great reads
July 1, 2013
WarioWare - The Book
September 11, 2014
Odd. Droll. It's a fairly short collection of very short stories, most of which end with a sort of wry punch line.
Reading it was fun.
Reading it was fun.
July 21, 2015
3.5 stars
November 13, 2015
Čtyři hvězdičky hlavně kvůli scénce s mrkví, díky které jsem se smála nahlas v metru. A takových chvilek si cením :)
May 5, 2013
Read it, now I don't really remember what I've read.
July 16, 2014
Weird and hilarious.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews