Perfect Flaw

by Robin Blankenship (Editor), Deedee Davies (Contributor), C.M. Chang (Contributor)

Readers everywhere are invited to experience adventures of a dystopian nature in the anthology Perfect Flaw, from editor Robin Blankenship! Featuring seventeen speculative fiction tales, spanning many genres, Perfect Flaw explores the subject of societies gone wrong. From "utopian" societies masking an underlying controlled state, to stories of people fighting back against repression, in hopes of a better world, the flaws that create a dystopian atmosphere are brought to light. Thought-provoking and entertaining, Perfect Flaw will be a welcome addition to any reader's collection of dystopian literature.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

322 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2013

Reviews

[Emilee (Fantastical Paper Realm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a dystopian anthology. So basically, it's wall to wall depressing future world epic. Yeah, it's that cool. With it being an Anthology, obviously different stories have different levels of awesome. Some are very low, others left me begging for a novel. The quality of all of the stories was very high, but the emotional connection definitely varied.

Here are my top 3 favorites:
Cost Benefit Analysis by Cathy Byant
This story has a fascinating world that I would love to get to know better. The environment is by far its major strength. It’s told through the POV of a girl searching for a better life. It’s cold and calculated. The characters reflect the world. This is one of those dystopia’s that somehow feel chillingly possible while being completely far-fetched. Basically, the world is more fantasy..but the lifestyle and despondency feels like I’ll see it in my life time.

System Error by Jay Faulkner
This one is genius. With it being so short I feel like anything I say about the story itself will be spoiler-ish, so I shall only tell you that it's amazing. The writing is gripping, the story is perfectly crafted, and, I exaggerate not, you can feel the tension seeping off the page. Yeah, it's that good.

Under A Pomegranate Sky- by Mandi M. Lynch
This one by far had the most fascinating world. A spaceship crash landed on a planet and the passengers built a "Utopia" where all the unwanteds are sent to an island. This is about the unwanteds finally speaking up. It's pretty invigorating!

This is definitely one for the bookshelf! It would be great to have and just flip through and pick a story for when you just need a little dystopia! I mean, we all have those times...right?

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Robin Blankenship’s anthology, Perfect Flaw, offers dystopian science fiction fans a perfect treat of cleverly imagined, terrifying and tormenting tales, ranging from near-future near-reality to shores of distant strangeness and estrangement. These dystopias aren’t bound to the post-apocalyptic horrors of modern movies; instead they grow from worlds of today, each taking its own specific path. From an obsession with cleanliness and safety in Frank Roger’s Cracks in the Concrete, through the scary brutality of goodwill in Carolyn Chang’s Smilers, to the shocking misery of Michael O’Connor’s The Choosing, and beyond, the stories run the gamut of sci-fi possibilities, haunt the reader with questions of probability, and offer a perfect mix of entertainment and food for thought. Endlessly fascinating, disturbingly dark, and enthrallingly hard to put down, this anthology certainly grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

Disclosure: I received a free ecopy during the blog tour for the book’s release. I’m just sorry it took me so long to get around to reading it. I loved it!

[Mo Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect Flaw gives the reader the what if society went too far? What if working towards the greater good, really isn't or is too high a price. As an editor, Blankenship does a good job of finding the stories to show this. Some were really good, like Smilers by Carolyn M. Chang; and Michael's Gate by Leslie J. Anderson. Others seemed a bit too odd for me and others still were just too far out there. Most gave you an impression of what could happen if certain things in society went too far. I did feel a bit of a disappointment in the last stories. I feel anthologies need to work like a symphony. A nice intro, some regular music and then a big ending. Mostly a reader will remember the last story and I didn't like this one. Useless by Ellen Brock brought to bear what happens to a society that has too many girls. Perhaps the subject was too iffy but I didn't like the story and that made this lose a star. I wanted a holy crap moment and got a oh well that's horrible instead.

I did add a few authors to my list of must reads which is all you can ask for in an anthology.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a collection of dark dystopian, often post-apocalyptic, stories. There were no real happy endings here. Every story had a sombre serious feel, and yet it never felt depressing.

My two favourite stories were:

- Useless by Ellen Brock – This was the only story had seemed to showcase hope, even if that seems the opposite of the title.
- The Choosing by Michael O’Connor – I was impressed by the inclusion of two distinct themes in one short story: innocence, and how expectations often differ from reality.

I was amazed at the variety of planets, governments and situations explored in this collection. There really was something for everyone in this collection, as long as you like your stories on the darker side.

[Marni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfect Flaw….a collection of short stories that have been described as dystopian in nature but truthfully felt like a trip through The Twilight Zone. Some of the stories held me, some left me scratching my head and some unfortunately dragged just a little too long. The majority of the time I had the Rod Serling voice in my head which isn’t really a bad thing because I have always been a fan of his.

A mixture of different stories, mostly centering on a loss of some sort. For some it was family, for some it was of themselves, for others it was of freedom. The stories were all well thought out and the majority hit the mark with providing a good, thought provoking story. Some even sparked further thoughts of “What if?” even after that particular segment was over.

Nowadays in literature dystopian has been directly linked as being of a post-apocalyptic world. This is actually not the reality of what it really is. Dystopian literature is more than that. It’s about living with hardships, terrors, oppression that is the opposite of a perfect world. It can be an alternate world/history or a world that didn’t deal with war at all but evolved into a cultural of oppression. The stories in this anthology pick up on the classic view of dystopian literature and run with it.

Something to think about. 100 years ago Earth and it’s societies were quite different than today. Think of the changes people have gone through. Back than the thought of something such as a computer would have been considered science fiction, today it is a norm. Things we think of as being science fiction today will most likely at one point in our history become a norm and the people we are today would be considered medieval. Our world is every evolving and as such we need to keep ourselves in check to prevent a dystopian world from becoming a norm.

I recommend this to anyone who likes science fiction, dystopian literature or literature that makes one think about what could be. I do recommend another round of editing though to correct some grammatical flaws that distract from the story. I also found that there were times that certain important details were given long after they should have been which made me have to change my whole train of thought.

[Shan Winslow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology full of post-apocalyptic, dystopian futures, and/or new and amazing worlds to give the reader something to think about. With many different stories, there is surely something here to appeal to any fan of the genre. Some of the stories are a bit harder to get into than others, but, overall, they are quite strong and there weren't any that I absolutely hated or anything of that nature. Of course, there were some that I enjoyed more than others, but that's to be expected in any anthology.

In short, I'd say to give this book a shot, if you are into the dystopian type stories and if you are looking for something a bit different than the norm. For me, each story didn't exactly turn out the way I expected they would and that can only be a good thing.

[Michael Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review for Perfect Flaw http://mikesfilmtalk.com/2013/05/05/p...

[Jay C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good themed anthology. I'll try to get a blog post up about it soon.
Update: http://bibliophilica.wordpress.com/20...