Take Me Out to the Soulgame

by Julia Rios

Life? Death? It's all Balls!

Reaper ZuZu Honeypot just wants to be done already, but the King of Death has rules, and in order to quite, he's going to have to find a replacement reaper, preferably one who's good at baseball.

Kelsey Davenport is having the worst day ever, and that's before they get smacked in the head with a killer baseball. Now the grim reaper seems to have it in for them, they're benched for the rest of the season, and they can't seem to stay broken up with their toxic ex girlfriend.

The only upside to this new traumatic brain injury lifestyle Kelsey's rocking is that they've found a new cafe with a hot retro chic barista and sweet oldies on the ... is that an actual cd player? Is Kelsey's concussion making them hallucinate, or is this place actually stuck in the 90s?

And this strange development is just the tip of the iceberg...

Genres: Fantasy, LGBT

54 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 25, 2023

About the author

Julia Rios writes all sorts of things, and edits primarily YA short fiction. Her fiction, articles, interviews, and poetry have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Jabberwocky, and several other places. Books she's edited include Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories, and the Year's Best YA Speculative Fiction series. She's half-Mexican, but her (fairly dreadful) French is better than her Spanish.

Reviews

[James Griffith]

Take Me Out to the Soulgame is funny and sincere. The tightness of the comedic prose has left me envious of the skill needed to pull it off. Great care is taken to really develop the character's emotional landscape. Take Me Out to the Soulgame is more like take me out to the cozy and wacky coffee shop stuck in 1997. You have a date set with death's niece and she made you a mixtape just for you. Its biggest flaw is how short it is. It's bound to leave you hungry for more. This coffee shop has got itself a new regular customer. 

[C.A. Holton]

Take me out to the Soulgame:

What a fun story! Reaper Zuzu Honeypot is hilarious, especially with his 'off-screen' tormentors. I mean, how can you go wrong with asides like: ""Amendment: the King of Death is not to be referred to as anything other than The King of Death. Unless he’s feeling precious and wants to go by Princeps again, because we all remember that phase, right?""

Though the story is short (10,700 words) it is packed with characterization, world-building, and entertainment. It is half-told as a recollection of events from Reaper Z's POV, and half from the perspective of Kelsey, a non-binary baseball player down on their luck.

If you have a chance to read this story, you should! It's well worth it.

[M.]

This cozy reapercore urban fantasy follows two very different characters through a series of screwball events in a magic-norm urban fantasy setting: ZuZu Honeypot, a Reaper of souls who would like to retire from the gig, and his hapless potential replacement, Kelsey Davenport, who would just like to have an ordinary day playing in an ordinary softball game, please and thank you.

I really loved the clever conceit at the core of this book and I don’t want to spoil anything, but it is a lovely Douglas Adams-esque tale that does not waste any opportunity to make you chuckle. I loved it, and I hope based on the "Book 1" in the title that I can look forward to more from this world.

[Mettesknit]

This was actually surprisingly funny.
SHORT! but entertaining.

So why just the 2 stars?

Well, the use of they, them, their when it's describing one person is REALLY confusing.
You guys need to come up with a new word, as has been done in other countries.
I know the US often just adds 'New' in front when they name places, ex New York.
- or come up with something else entirely.
Using plural words is just messed up.

Ex from where I live:
Han = He
Hun = She
Hen = LGBTQ+ that identify as other, or not he/she.

Seeeeee?!
It's easy.
Make up a new word!!!
Pleeeeeaaaase!!

[Carmen]

Kinda a 3.5 rounded up. I think. I have conflicting feels.

I had a weird relationship with this one. There's nothing overtly wrong with it, but it didn't seem to "stick" very well, and I often felt like I was missing or forgetting something. But every time I went back to look things over again, I found I remembered it all.
So somehow it's both memorable and not.

It's a cute story, though. I love ZuZu's sass :P
I do wish it were longer, but I feel like the shortness is what helped the "I've forgotten everything, but wait I remember everything" feeling (take that as you will).

[Valerie Kessler]

Cute story. I'd love a cozy follow up of Kelsey and Ava.

The interruptions by Z were funny but a bit jaring at times in terms of flow of the story.

Who knew traumatic brain injuries could have happy endings?

[Star]

3.5 Stars


This was silly in the best way! Just a nice simple story with surprisingly good world building fit into about 50ish pages.