24:01 One Minute After

by Eric Diehl

An anthology of horror, science fiction and fantasy short stories, some dark and some light but all challenging the bounds of your imagination. You will begin with an experiment in nano-biotechnology gone very wrong, end with an alternate reality on Olde Aearth, and in between experience everything from dragons and wizards to a hurricane and misadventures in space!

Genres: Science Fiction

218 pages, ebook

First published January 13, 2012

About the author

Eric is a tinkerer; he likes to make things. Perhaps it began with a custom van built in the long-haired days of the seventies—an old school bus with an engine salvaged from the junk yard. Or with the dozens of motorcycles ridden, broken, repaired and ridden again. Eric has built furniture and guitars; he’s screen-printed t-shirts and he’s used software to created package-design. He’s written software for corporations large and small—for a time working out of the traveling RV he and Sue called home. He built and flew a gyrocopter over the cane-fields and beaches of south Florida.

But of all the avocations in which he’s dabbled, Eric stands most in awe of one. Consider that most elusive of creations—the story. Ink on paper, black on white—a collection of simple syllables woven into a journey bounded only by the imagination.

After more than three decades in south Florida, Eric and lovely wife Susan moved to the Upstate region of South Carolina, where the nearby Appalachian mountains clamor for exploration. Motorcycling remains a life-long passion, and he forever persists in being confounded by the acoustic guitar.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bunch of short stories free from Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

I wanted to review each story & they deserve it. They are often quirky, other times horrible &/or twisted, but all were very good. A lot of different genres were covered from Medieval fantasy to SF. I probably should have rated this as 4 stars, but it's free & very well written. That earns it an extra star & I'm not sure it doesn't deserve it anyway.

"Nanny" is about nanobots with a great ending.
"A Simple Trade" is a fantasy story. Excellent.
"Spirits of the 'Cane" - plain horror with an interesting cast.
"Edgar" A quirky game of magic. Very neat. I'll never look at cats the same way again. I could see them doing just this.
"Galinda" Shades of Grendel with a Gardner twist.
"A Kingdom for the Taking" A Medieval conspiracy.
"A Darkness of Spirit" Magic, dragons, Medieval war, & spirit. Interesting on several levels. I'm still thinking about it, so it must be good.
"Verdara Lightstar" Space opera - fun!
"Science & the Greater Good" Wow! I thought I'd seen most SF twists on this theme. Didn't see this one coming, though.
"The Roots of Fate" Not bad, but not my favorite story in the collection. Still, it was interesting & worth reading.
"A Second Rising" Aliens have taken over our world & turned us into ignorant livestock.

I highly recommend getting this & watch out for more by this author. He's good!

[P · Rating 1 out of 5]

The language from the 2nd story was really difficult to get into.

[Wampuscat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this anthology as a freebie on Smashwords. It sounded interesting, and I was on the hunt for some new authors to read at the time. I'd postponed reading it many times because my book queue has grown so much. But, as I have that tendency to be a completionist, I felt it had lingered long enough in the digital pile. Unfortunately, it didn't really fit with my current desired reading tastes, which means it took me a long time to finish it, even though it's not that long of a book. I'm afraid that drug-out reading time has skewed my review more negatively than the book might really deserve. I can only give it 2 stars on Goodreads as a result.

Anyway, the stories are a smattering of science fiction and fantasy. The writing is done well, although there is a tendency toward overly expansive similes. The thing that made it most difficult for me to complete was that each story, while having a decent premise and a hook point, failed to deliver that final satisfying ending. Thus, the stories are mediocre at best… to me at least. I would not seek this author out for additional short fiction, but might give a shot to a full novel… if my queue weren't already so long!

So, my Average rating for the stories in this anthology is 2.5 stars. I would recommend the 3 stories I rated 4 stars, but the rest are skip-able.

Below are my ratings, summary, and sundry on each of the stories. Note: there may be spoilers, so read ahead on your own recognizance.

Nanny (1 star)

Nanites run amok! An illicit experiment by an well intentioned but misguided scientist leads to trouble for humanity… as a species.

A Simple Trade (4 stars)

The misguided conclusions of a youthful ruler send an assassin after his half-brother, but the ruler and the assassin both soon learn that the unexpected can bring dire consequences.

Spirits of the 'Cane (2 stars)

A hurricane party leads to the stranding of two frat boys whose devil-may-care attitudes lead them from one bad place to a worse one. The souls of those wiped out by another hurricane long before have waited for nearly a century. Now, the supernatural forces of a sudden second hurricane are freeing them from the grave… but they need new bodies to accomplish the goals of their hive mind. And two frat boys would make a great start.

Edgar (2 stars)

Two feline sorcerers engage in a battle of wits that immerses them into a magical game meant to grant bragging rights to the winner… but when they physically step onto the game board itself, they may have more fun than they intended.

Galinda (3 stars)

The old line from Tolkien… "not all those who wander are lost"… well, similarly, for Galinda the Hag, not all those who seem cursed want it to be dispelled.

A Kingdom for the Taking (3 stars)

Never try to out-backstab a backstabber! The plotting of an impatient prince and his sister seem to come to fruition… and then there's the rest of the story!

A Darkness of Spirit (3 stars)

For dragons, the draw of the invisible spirit of violence and bloodlust have been overcome by communal thought. But the unwitting tapping-into of this spirit by a human threatens to draw them all back to savagery and bestiality.

Verdara Lightstar (4 stars)

This is the adventure of a space merchant with more than enough gall and wit up her sleeve to overcome some space pirates… with some luck thrown in, of course.

This one could be expanded into a novel I would read. It is one of the two best stories in the book to me.

Science and the Greater Good (1 star)

A horror story of a serial killer who figures out how to become immortal, posses bodies, and step through time at whim.

The Roots of Fate (1 star)

This one was over almost before it started. A really bad black mage has arisen from his entombment in the forest. Oh, the good guy stopped him. Next… what?

A Second Rising (4 stars)

An excellent little tale of the hooman race of Olde Aerth conquered, subjugated and all but exterminated. The story is at the pivotal moment of their break away for survival. I would like to see this one expanded into a novel as well.

[A Voracious Reader (a.k.a. Carol) · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Book source ~ ARC. My review is honest and voluntary.

This anthology is a mixture of paranormal, fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. The writing is great, but most of the stories aren’t really my thing.

Nanny ~ Horror. Experiments on rats gone very wrong.

A Simple Trade ~ Fantasy. This is why leaders should always talk to their elders/counsel before making decisions. This is my favorite story out of this collection.

Spirits of the ‘Cane ~ Horror. I don’t get this one.

Edgar ~ Fantasy. Ok, this was weird. I was so confused throughout this one.

Galinda ~ Horror/Fantasy. Galinda is, um, quite different.

A Kingdom for the Taking ~ Historical/Fantasy. I enjoyed this one.

A Darkness of Spirit ~ Fantasy. Dragons.

Verdara Lightstar ~ Sci-Fi. My second favorite of the collection.

Science and the Greater Good ~ Horror. Oh. My. The science involved in this one strained my brain and the MC is horrifying.

The Roots of Fate ~ Fantasy. A bad guy tries to rise again and there’s magic involved.

A Second Rising ~ Sci-Fi/Dystopian. This is depressing as shit. Well, except for the end.

[Dray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't know if I can finish this one. I started out with an open mind about it, and the first few stories were fine, but the writing needs fine tuning. For example, I enjoyed 'Edgar' and 'A Darkness of Spirit' as they evoked a sort of nostalgia for writing stories of cats and dragons as a kid. After reading through those, and expecting the other entries in this anthology to follow somewhat similar lines, I had the misfortune of reading 'Vedara Lightstar' which was so poorly written both using narrative cues and aiming for the correct tone of the genre of Heavy Metal Sci Fi that I quickly lost the urge to humour Diehl's foibles and just as quickly wanted to rip into the rest of his writing at the least flaw.

Vedara's just a poorly written 60's male protagonist who's had a gender swap at the last second to make the story sound progressive. It's frustrating as all hell reading a 'racy sci fi' that does it so badly because there's a lot of ways to get it wrong and I think Diehl might have been aiming to strike every nail on the head. If that was his intention, why not couch it amid other satiric stories?

Reading 'Science for the Greater Good' shortly afterwards is just awful. I don't want to read about a psychopathic rapist asshole who gets a second chance at life. That's just not my bag. The awful protagonist is up against an even worse religious group so I guess he's the lesser of two evils? Really? Ugh. I can't finish it. Reading it straight after the Vedara piece... it's like Diehl just gave up and decided to write shitty murder porn. Doesn't belong in an anthology with the first half of his book. I'd go on a little longer about the other stories seeming to harbour some under-the-counter style anti-women themes -- apparently they can either be evil or victim to horrible things, or both (unless they're not human to begin with...?) -- but I may just be reading too much into it. I'll leave it at the fact that while some of the stories were alright, and a couple were good, there are a couple more stinkers in quick succession that suck. They suck so bad.

Blegh, I'd rate this one star, but the first 2/3rds of the anthology were passable. I don't care if he's managed to pull of a killer of a good story for the last couple. I'm not reading any more of this trite shit.

[Cheryl Landmark · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, I want to thank Eric Diehl for offering this little gem for free on Smashwords. I’m very glad I decided to give his anthology a try.

The author has a very good command of the written word and has published a collection of short stories that are obviously the product of a boundless and fertile imagination. He can lead the reader effortlessly into the scientific world of modern technology where nanobots inspire dread, or the whimsical world of fantasy where cat-like creatures play a strange and dangerous game, or the far reaches of space where interstellar pirates prey on cargo vessels, or an earth-like world where cruel aliens imprison humans in shanty towns. Some of the tales will make you laugh and some will make you shudder in horror.

My favourite stories were “A Simple Trade”, “Spirits of the ‘Cane”, “Vedara Lightstar”, and “A Second Rising”.

I would encourage anyone to give this anthology a try. I don’t believe you will be disappointed.

[Cloey.k · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking for stories about nano technology, magic, disembodied souls, space pirates, and aliens along with the weird and crazy?

Look no further, 24:01 One Minute After by Eric Diehl is a well written anthology of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror short stories that will leave you wanting more. Diehl quickly pulls you into his story worlds then guides you through the lives of his characters then leaves your mind asking the questions "what just happened here" or "I didn't see that coming... I've been mind-freaked!" I have always loved a good mind teaser and found a collection of them right here in this book. I didn't want to abandon any story nor did I want to move ahead to the end. The stories are easy to read can be read in less than an hour which makes them perfect for busy schedules. You should read it, you will not be disappointed.

[Amandeepthapa]

James Joyce