Beyond the Absurd

by Alexandar Tomov

Beyond the Absurd

Lord Byron: "Truth is stranger than fiction".

Coming soon...

"Beyond the Absurd" is book for everyone, who is interested about deep soul horizons and grotesque abyss of Absurd. This book contains very short stories in genres Absurd, dystopia, fantasy, fiction, post - apocalyptic and grotesque. In my work there is strange viewpoint about human existence, imagination and mind. I try to describe absurdity of the world and life and also to find some deep, invisible connections in the flow of time.

Unknown Binding

About the author

Alexander Tomov Jr. was born on June 3, 1982 in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. He is freelance writer and film director who is looking for realization abroad. His work consists of short stories and short films. The author creates non standard points of view toward the world and the human existence. Some of his stories are hypotheses for the development of society and civilization and for the evolution of human nature in far future.

Reviews

[pink (not just another shade of red) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love short stories. Always to the point. No word wasted. You always have to read between the lines. And there's a story of how these stories came together in one book. Yet short story collections are always very tricky reads. For me, at least. Most of the time, the stories are written by different writers with different voices and styles from different times all over the world. Thus, making them even trickier to review. Reviewing the collection as a whole would be a bit unfair to the superior stories of the bunch. Yet, writing separate reviews for each story would be disconnecting them from one another.
So I figured I'll just make a checklist of the essentials of what I look for in a great shorts collection:
★ The first page hook
The first lines make it or break it. They determine wether I continue reading or shove the book under the carpet(or delete the eBook)
I finished Beyond the Absurd so obviously the first story(Hotel of the Absurd) caught my interest. It's dark and intriguing and has certain depths to it.
★ The connection between the stories
Again, another one checked off by Beyond the Absurd. The one dozen stories actually read like aunts, uncles, second degree cousins, and step sisters on a sinister family reunion. Not just strangers forced to sit side by side in a long corridor.
★ The connection between the stories and me
Now here's the difficult one. Rapport takes time. On a short story, the connection has to be instant or there'd be no enough time to develop it. The problem with Beyond the Absurd is that I never felt any connection, sympathy, or whatever towards the narrator. I felt curiosity which is only good during the first half of the book. Towards the end though, this is almost irksome because I almost can't make anything out of them. With the stories themselves, there's just no way I'd be able to connect with something about burning one's dark past nor of a meeting about the candidate for the next head of the world or something. There are only two stories that I can somehow relate to, the Story 1 and 2 on The Tales about Memory.
★ Unique and engaging prose
Let's admit it, no matter how short, when the narrative is a complete bore we'd still be yawning. And when writing a handful of words, a writer should sound original for those few words to stand out on this abyss of literature. Beyond the Absurd's prose is only mildly engaging, sometimes flat, and more tell than show. It tells me a face is striking or a taxi looks strange yet it never showed me what makes the face striking or the taxi strange. And though the material used is exceptional, the voice used to tell them and the way they are told is sadly, not.
★ At least one unforgettable story
At least one. Please. If you could make it two, go ahead. I'd love you more.
Now there's this one story I loved. In a Memory of a Man Whose (Possibly) Alive. It's very short, the shortest in the collection. It also reads like a poem and in my opinion, profound. Still, I doubt if I'd still think about it next week. So.
Overall, two stars..

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This unique collection of short stories delves into the human existence focusing on death, ghosts and time travel.
Full Review On YouTube here: https://youtu.be/0dTvf5qxQaw
It's a fascinating viewpoint shown to us on a roller coaster that was both abstract and disconnected. Buckle up for the absurd - it was a wild ride that I enjoyed!

[Andy N · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to thank the author Alexander Tomov for the advanced copy of his book in exchange for an honest review!

Beyond the Absurd was a delight to read. Being a fan for the Theatre of the Absurd, specially Waiting for godot by Samuel Backett and No Exist by Jean-Paul Sartre, I’m familiar with the style.

These 12 short stories, focused on the absurd, take the reader in a journey to the deepest and darkest corners of the human mind and actions, and the paradox of human choices and opinions. These tales are a mix of genres that go from fantasy and sci-fi to dystopia and even humour.

Alexander Tomov is a great writer and his writing style is amazing. The language is simple and it completely matches the simplicity of life and the banalities of our daily lives. I must admit that in the beginning I got a bit lost since I didn’t know if the stories were somehow related or not. It’s nothing that can’t be clarified with an introduction to the book. Furthermore, I think that a quotation on the subject or theme in the beginning of each story could help the reader to understand the story better.

Some of the stories were really creepy like “The machine” that can create the ghost of someone for your past or the 4-year-old boy that committed suicide because he hated the world since he was 2. My favourite stories were “The Taxicab” and the “Firekeeper”. These two stories are related to the thing but in a different perspective: time. They’re about travelling to the past or the future and an old-man that can burn ghosts from the past. For me, it’s about that human desire to relive distant memories with people that are lost and the inability to aspect that our past, no matter how dark, is what makes us who we are now.

The story that really made me laugh is the devil having an orgy in the United Nation’s room since hell is out of room and “Heaven has gone bankrupt” from the lack of pure souls. A story about power and how leaders only take notice to the details that are in their interests.

These are the type of stories that made me think and to see the absurdity of life, the contradictions of what we see and choose to see has banalities. For example, the end of world, the death of children, how we would like to change something in our lives but don’t and then wish to change the past. Tomov inserts tiny details that complete the short-stories and make them even more human.

It was a great reading that I recommend for the fans of the absurd. I’ll definitely keep an eye open for Mr Tomov’s future works.

[Kenna McKinnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm quoting here from Wikipedia, "The Theatre of the Absurd is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s, as well as one for the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. Their work focused largely on the idea of existentialism and expressed what happens when human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down..."

Most well known to me is Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" and the philosophies of Albert Camus.

Written in first person, these very brief stories focus on death, annihilation, the future, past and present, memories, and the Day of Judgment at the end of the world. Many feature travel of some kind along a road or roads that lead to absurdity or death, but death is not featured as final but rather a thin veil that reveals itself through ghosts, taxi drivers, and old men burning fires.

Reading these stories sent a shock of recognition up my spine that might have corresponded with the Yogic idea of chakras lighting up. They're philosophy mixed with quantum physics, which could be the same, and indeed I recommend "The Zen of Physics", a vintage book, to those who would like an explanation of the connection between philosophy, Eastern thought, and modern physics.

I thought at times the stories could have been improved by ending sooner, but not always. A beautiful and mysterious woman could represent death and sexuality.

The book is translated from Bulgarian to English by an excellent translator, as far as I could tell.

[Author Yasir Sulaiman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! This book has literally captured my imagination “Beyond the Absurdities”! Combining elements of horror, mythology and science fiction, the author has ensured that everyone will love a piece of this book. It features 12 short stories; all of which contain a single theme. ‘What are we doing to the world today? Isn’t everything being destroyed around us? Then why aren’t we taking steps to save it? The future looks very bleak but we are not changing. Coming to mythology, “the Day of Judgment” is a common faith for several faiths. This book makes us imagine what that would be like. Hats off to Alexander! Ian author myself; but I imagined things which I earlier couldn’t even dream about!

[Karina McRoberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There is something inherently deceptive about reality."

What a great opening line! If you even slightly lean to this way of thinking, check out Bulgarian author Alexandar Tomov's collection of short stories, Beyond the Absurd.

They are genuinely spooky. They do lose a little in the translation, but not much. A few need more solid endings, but perhaps that's where we, as readers, should be - wondering....

He has a way of getting you in. Hint: Do NOT get into the elevator !!!

This author's ability to create way outside the square is refreshing. If you are a fan of Stephen King or the X-Files, you will enjoy these stories.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

As promised, this book contained short stories that dealt with the dark and grim realities of what's next and do we dare face it. I enjoyed the stories as I was able to quickly get into the mind of the storyteller. Each story was stark and powerful in their visions.

For a quick read, it hits the mark.

[Judi Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alexander Tomov gave me 12 stories extracted from his (as I understand) forthcoming volume of short fiction for an honest review.

The stories began life in Bulgarian and have been translated, mainly by Ekaterina Petrova. In her hands their complex, abstract content has made a seamless transition into excellent English while maintaining the original Eastern European flavour. The stories reminded me of Kafka’s work, in the way that everything is a metaphor for something else, emotion is internalised; characters are very buttoned down. Some of Tomov’s insights are a delight. I’m sure anyone who remembers (or is still experiencing) their teenage years will be able to identify with this, the opening sentence of the first story, ‘The Hotel of Absurdity’ – ‘On that strange morning, it suddenly got dark and I realized that evening had come.’ So simple; so disorientating. The rest of the story takes us to the hotel of the title, where I found this insight arresting, ‘The place reminded me of somebody else’s childhood that wasn’t quite over …’

If you enjoyed the movie ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ you are the sort of reader for whom Tomov is writing. Answers to the questions he sets himself are not really forthcoming. Characters remain ciphers. But one doesn’t get the feeling that these are marks missed. The stories explore widely from a specific cultural starting point. That they reach no conclusions may frustrate some – but Tomov’s interest is in the exploration of life’s absurdities. They lead to this sort of observation – ‘Sometimes it’s hard to tell life and death apart.’ And this (from’Street from the distant future’) ‘He was barely four, but he’d hated the whole world ever since he was two. I think that deep inside, he felt as only a child could feel.’ Nuggets like this occur regularly and the stories are worth reading for them alone.

If you have a penchant for dark rainy streets, beautifully constructed aperçus, and conundrums, then these are your sort of stories.

There are a few jarring notes which need a mention. In ‘The Time Machine’: these days it is not usually done to call Native Americans ‘Indians’. This tends to offend people from two different continents. It is worth explaining ‘the grandfather paradox’ as it is the example used to illustrate the ‘insoluble paradoxes’ connected with the impossibility of time travel. In the story ‘Cordless’ I could not reconcile ‘I feel lucid’ with ‘nearly unconscious’. Something is awry there, I think. And, finally, the reader will be greatly helped if paragraphs can be indented and the ends and beginnings of stories better separated from each other.

[Hallie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Free copy provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a collection of ten stories which deals with something I found rather vague. In my opinion, I found all the stories obscure. All the stories are written in first person, and I developed a slight abhorrence towards first person narrative ever since I was a young girl.

After reading all the stories, I found no connecting link between the stories. They were sort of cryptic, and the authentic meaning is hard to interpret as it is obscure. The stories were a little weird and particularly, the endings were abrupt which did not let me shower a feeling of tangibility over it.

However, I do have a few positive points to say about this book. Although everything was hidden, there is something in it which does not let the reader put it down; the writing style, or perhaps the aptitude of curiosity found in all human being? I regret to inform that I didn't particularly like the writing style, but who said I disliked it? It is just a simple book, and was well, just average.

[Lisa McKenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexander Tomov takes the banalities of living in this world and inserts such incongruous details into the everyday that his short stories become sinister, frightening and in most cases quite creepy- the 4 year old that decided at 2 to commit suicide, who jumps from the rooftop giving the assembled below the finger on the way down, the anti death drug which enables longevity through ceaseless orgasms, the devil running an orgy at the UN as hell is out of room. There is in these stories the presentation of the world as the unsafe place we always suspected which is heightened in the juxtaposition of workaday language with the incongruous: banality highlighting the absurdity. An enjoyable read for lovers of short stories where there is the demand for the readers intellect to be engaged.

[Jonah Bergan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Up and Coming Talent
As I read “Beyond the Absurd,” I felt as if I was reading from the notebooks of a young philosopher. Some of the stories felt a little contrived, but that is often true with the the philosophic style. Setting and lighting and the complexity of characters are typically not goals of the philosophic style. Instead, read these stories for the the questions they pose. Read them to ride along as the concepts evolve. It is a rare opportunity to glimpse the mind of a genius at work. It's a rare opportunity to watch talent evolve.

I was provided a free copy of this work in exchange for a fair and honest review.

[Iesha (In east shade house at...) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beyond the Absurd is a collection of ten short stories, all written in first person. Honesty, I didn't really feel an connection to any of the speakers in the stories, and at times I was a little confused about some of the stories in general. (Not sure rather that's the point of Beyond the Absurd) Always, this was an ok read for me.

~Review will be updated once I re read through the stories again~

[Vince · Rating 4 out of 5]

The "Beyond The Absurd" collection of short stories are not as polished as Tomov's "Future Gone" but are just as enjoyable. His ideas and concepts are fabulous, and all of these shorts contain unique twists. I particularly enjoy the fact that each piece never seems to travel exactly in the direction I expect as I read on. My favorites are "Street From The Distant Future" and "The Firekeeper."

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aleksandar Tomov’s collection of short stories, entitled Beyond the Absurd, exhibits an unapologetic fascination with death and explores the ways in which people attempt to control, negotiate with, deny, and accept what is most often considered the “evil” side of human nature.

Read the full review by Kelli Gunn here: https://bookend2016.wordpress.com/cat...

[Parinaz Billimoria]

Beyond Imagination. Beyond ordinary work. Beyond absurdity! I liked it! Thanks Alexander...

[Gale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was given this book for my honest review. I really couldn't get into this book,I guess it is because not my style.

[G.R. Holton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the original text and though the stories were very good. Thank you Alexandar for a very cool read!
Bob Holton