Time Is a Fine White Lie: Postmodern Musings

by William Steffey

An Australian shamaness traveling in the body of a Chicago bartender leads to a surreal rendezvous with a presumed-dead rock star. An OkCupid encounter turns into blissful madness when souls connect over a national tragedy. A bloody accident at a city bus stop gives way to an absurdly rewarding feast.

This collection of seven short stories poses the What phenomena are occurring under our nose, right now, that appear completely random but are consistent and solid periodic events we simply lack the scope to see, the comprehension to grasp, or the vocabulary to name? Time Is a Fine White Lie may be the closest thing we have to a traveler’s journal from that latent, ephemeral possibility — at once a tribute, warning, antidote, and gateway — to that which we take for granted.

Audible Audio

Published December 11, 2020

Reviews

[Westveil Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was granted access to listen to the audiobook performance of Time is a Fine White Lie by the author via The Audiobookworm Promotions in exchange for an honest review as part of my participation in a blog tour for this title. Thank you to all involved for this opportunity! This has not swayed my review; my thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

Time is a Fine White Lie is a collection of short fictions of varying lengths, all set in what appears to be our modern world, but with a major difference of one sort or another, usually ending in an absurd and unpredictable way. I know the designated genre is "magical realism," but I'm tempted to say this is "magical surrealism," because this is most definitely one of those books that's quite likely to leave you wondering what you just read, not because you've forgotten or didn't understand the words, but because it takes a lot of thought with an open mind to try to grasp the meaning behind those words.

The Transponder reminds me of the way astral projection is presented in The Men Who Stare at Goats, and although the plots have little to nothing in common, Banged Up made me think of The Book of Stanley. I also quite enjoyed 96% Match (they knew what had to be done!) and Eden. On the other hand, Earth Water Sky Trilogy felt more like three disjointed shower thoughts than a story that belonged in this collection, and the remaining stories didn't make as much of an impact on me either way.

As this review is for the audio performance, I should comment on the narrators. Each story was narrated by a different performer (besides the opening and closing, which were also performed by the narrator of The Transponder, Greg Chun.) Greg's voice is perfect for this genre, and I enjoyed the effects applied to dialogue that was spoken telepathically. Andrew Weiss (Forward) sounded a little bored with his material, and if the entire project had been his narration I might not have finished it. Aaron Goodson (Earth Water Sky Trilogy) was a delight to listen to, even if I didn't like the story he was assigned. Karen Strassman (Goodbye Cassiopea) and Kathleen France (Orange Light) spoke painfully slowly and made me wish the listening platform I was granted access to had playback acceleration like Audible does. Ritesh Rajan (Bullets), Abby Trott (Eden) and Todd Haberkorn (Banged Up) all gave entertainingly lively performances that I quite enjoyed. P.J. Ochlan (96% Match) was also easy to listen to, but I wanted to note separately that his voice sounds like it would be great for educational material and non-fiction, and makes me think of the man who announces "This is Audible" on all of their files.

Overall I call this a 4 out of 5 stars. It's entertaining and thought-provoking, though not all of the stories are on the same level, and the narrations was mostly a pleasant experience that would be improved with the ability to turn up the playback speed just a little.

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I read this title for a blog tour! To read the rest of the post and gain easy access to the rest of the tour, visit: https://www.westveilpublishing.com/?p...

[Scott Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories, thoughtful musings, snapshots of lives being lived.
Some contain snappy witticisms, observations that make you nod your head, maybe grin as you read them and say, yeah, I get it, I've been there. Others take a more sinister, creepy twist.
The writing is strong, well-crafted, and visual. Some of the stories I really liked, others were chilling.
Readers looking for edgy fiction will absolutely love these short tales.

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

96% Match and Banged Up are my two favorites. It's easy to sit down and read the whole book in one sitting or one section at a time. You can easily escape with any of the stories which are range from so absurd it would really happen to fantasy. Time is a Fine White Lie contains philosophical musings on society which make you think what would I do in this situation?

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time Is a Fine White Lie is a surreal experience. These seven short stories sometimes felt disjointed and sometimes felt like they were tethered together in the astral plane. I’m pretty sure I don’t get it and yet I still liked it.

My favorite was the satire about a group of injured people seeking medical assistance. Society isn’t interested in helping them. In fact, they are seen as being disruptive and unseemly, bleeding all over the place and making a mess. I felt it had a solid footing in our modern world where health care shouldn’t be such a battle to obtain. Of course it had to get weird at the end with rubbing food on people…. but, hey, this story wouldn’t deserve to be in this collection if it wasn’t odd.

There was one story about an adult woman finding her mother dead, perhaps from an overdose, at home. She looses it mentally, fleeing from the loss. I found this story a little slow but the ending really nailed it, making the whole of it a rather poignant tale.

The collection takes a little odd twist at the end with a tale of a guy at a bar telepathically chatting with the bartender, who is actually just a voluntary vessel for some spiritually gifted traveler from some far off place. The tale pulls in a dead rock star and some higher spiritual being who I will call the Navel (simply because it gives me a giggle and also because I think anyone holding great power needs to remind themselves to be humble from time to time). It was a weird trip. I don’t really get it and I’m not sure I care but it was still entertaining. Maybe I am simple spiritually immature as was the volunteer bartender body. 3.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Several narrators had a hand in this weird collection: Greg Chun, Andrew Weiss, Aaron Goodson, Abby Trott, Karen Strassman, Kathleen France, P.J. Ochlan, Ritesh Rajan, Todd Haberkorn. I don’t know who did what but for the most part, they were all good fits for this project. A few of the narrations felt a bit slow and the platform I listened on (Aquariphone) didn’t have the option to adjust playback speed. So those stories felt like they dragged a bit. That one story with the telepathic communication attempted to modify the volumes to indicate telepathy was in play but it just came out weird on my laptop speakers. I think just going with sotto voce would have worked better. Other than that, a solid performance. 4.5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by William Steffey. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like the HBO show Room 104, then you'll like this book. It's a quick, weird read. I did appreciate the different voices and tones of each vignette. Definitely doesn't seem like the same person wrote each one, which kept me interested. I like the *idea* of this book but some of the stories were upsetting, I'm not sure if I was in the right headspace for this.