Here are nineteen tales of magic, wonder, and science, leavened with humanity, from some of the the finest story-telling members of AbsoluteWrite.com.
The short stories in this volume explore dimensions within and without, the nature of sentience, and the mysteries of time, space, and being that concern all of us.
Stores by Alma Alexander, Suzanne Palmer, Timothy Power, Sage Collins, and many other talented writers.
Come explore with us! We've been waiting just for you.
Ten of the stories are accompanied by black-and-white illustrations.
I picked this up because one of the writers is an acquaintance.
“Flickers” read too much like a Lit Class assignment. “Fireflies” left a couple of questions unanswered. What, if anything was upstairs? Why was the boy trapped in the hotel if he came in with his family? “Crow” left me cold. “Gus” not only left me cold, it confused me. ”Daughter of the Void” was an entertaining story, reminded me of why I love SF “From Antardigus-7” had me laughing. “Kiss of the Jade Fox” read like a classic tale of adventure and growth. Nicely done. “Lipspeak” was intriguing and well written. “Money for Nothing” was a bit predictable, and the character is hard to sympathize with, but still a decent read. “Mandrake’s Folly” makes use of the anti-hero which is usually not my taste, the writer managed to work in a few twists that made it worth the read. “Madam Orobas” was too predictable and it left a (in my mind) critical question unanswered – what was with the snake. “Death Perception” I had to look at the story just to recall which one it was. Unmemorable and depressing. “The Manservent” starts out slow, but becomes a delightful trip back to Transylvania with a nice twist at the end. “Alchemy of a Murder” is one of the best stories in the collection. Well plotted and written with sound characters. I would not mind seeing more stories with these characters. “Dead Connections” was okay. Barely memorable. “The Winter Camp” reminded me of the ghost stories we use to tell around the fire in Girl Scout camp. “The Last Night of the World” started with an interesting concept, but fell flat when it switched povs. “The Machine that loved Alan Turning” baffled me. A race of sentient machines is nothing new; neither is putting a person in a position of choosing between two difficult paths. But a lose/lose choice? “Dreamshare” came across as little more than a cautionary tale about drug use. The main character didn’t even succeed in her quest.
Over all, out of nineteen stories, seven were worth the time it took to read, two or three were so-so, the rest I had to force myself to finish.