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The Soul Standard
Across four different districts of a city that has torn itself to shreds, four different interweaving tales (each written by a different author) play out. In “Four Corners,” a morally dubious banker must keep his employer happy at any cost. The next story, “Punhos Sagrados,” concerns a boxer who finds himself torn between honor and the woman he loves. “Golden Geese” follows a hardened criminal with a terrifying condition who must come to terms with the life he’s led. Finally, “Jamais Vu” provides a stunning denouement as a man searches endless for his missing daughter, a task which is complicated by a peculiar condition: his inability to recognize faces. Told in rugged, bare-knuckled prose, The Soul Standard is a nonstop thrill-ride down the darkened avenues and through the shadowed alleys of a nightmare town.
Richard Thomas is the author of six novels, over 100 stories, and has edited four anthologies, including Burnt Tongues, with Chuck Palahniuk. He lives in Chicago.
Nik Korpon is the author of The Rebellion’s Last Traitor; Stay God, Sweet Angel; and Bar Scars: Stories, among others. He lives in Baltimore.
Axel Taiari was born and raised in Paris, France. Publishing credits include Abyss & Apex, Fantasy Scroll, The Big Click, and others. Read more at www.axeltaiari.com.
Caleb Ross’ writing has appeared widely, both online and in print. He is the author of five books of fiction and lives in Olathe, KS. Visit his official page at calebjross.com.
Richard Thomas is the author of six novels, over 100 stories, and has edited four anthologies, including Burnt Tongues, with Chuck Palahniuk. He lives in Chicago.
Nik Korpon is the author of The Rebellion’s Last Traitor; Stay God, Sweet Angel; and Bar Scars: Stories, among others. He lives in Baltimore.
Axel Taiari was born and raised in Paris, France. Publishing credits include Abyss & Apex, Fantasy Scroll, The Big Click, and others. Read more at www.axeltaiari.com.
Caleb Ross’ writing has appeared widely, both online and in print. He is the author of five books of fiction and lives in Olathe, KS. Visit his official page at calebjross.com.
280 pages, Paperback
First published July 12, 2016
7 people are currently reading
360 people want to read
About the author
Caleb J. Ross
39 books192 followersMy fiction and nonfiction has appeared widely, both online and in print. I am the author of five books of fiction and one book about the video game What Remains of Edith Finch. I am a co-host of Tales of the Lesser Medium, a video game podcast that pokes fun at video game narratives.
I am also the creator of a YouTube channel that encourages people to not just play games but think games.
Visit my official website at www.calebjross.com
Subscribe to my newsletter at Games are Real
I am also the creator of a YouTube channel that encourages people to not just play games but think games.
Visit my official website at www.calebjross.com
Subscribe to my newsletter at Games are Real
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 23, 2016
Soul Standard displays the versatility and fluidity of good noir writing. There are four separate stories linked by a city comprised of four districts. There are some Sci Fi elements as well as dystopian elements among other literary genres and labels but it really just boils down to 4 great and dark novellas.
Caleb Ross' Four Corners tells a story about the economic failure of the city that is reverting to a bartering system in place of cash. People trade in favors but the real money is in the organ trade. Nik Korpon's "Punhos Sagrados" is the longest of the four and probably the strongest in my opinion. It tells the story of a scrappy underground boxer trying to make his way to the top and create a new life for him and his mentally ill girlfriend but struggles due to the shadiness of his business. Richard Thomas' superiorly brutal "Golden Geese" is about a man coming to terms with his criminal past as well as some personal mistakes that cause him much suffering. Finally, "Jamais Vu" by Axel Tairi was a pleasant surprise for me as he was the only author I had never heard of but I loved his story. I really hope to read more from him in the future. "Jamais Vu" is a more hard boiled style private detective story about a man trying to find his daughter that has been kidnapped into a human trafficking ring.
All in all four stories that would hold up just fine on their own but come together to make a powerful well built novel. I recommend this book to any fans of the author's previous work as well as those into the dark literary fiction of say Craig Davidson or Ken Bruen. I assure you Soul Standard will not disappoint.
Caleb Ross' Four Corners tells a story about the economic failure of the city that is reverting to a bartering system in place of cash. People trade in favors but the real money is in the organ trade. Nik Korpon's "Punhos Sagrados" is the longest of the four and probably the strongest in my opinion. It tells the story of a scrappy underground boxer trying to make his way to the top and create a new life for him and his mentally ill girlfriend but struggles due to the shadiness of his business. Richard Thomas' superiorly brutal "Golden Geese" is about a man coming to terms with his criminal past as well as some personal mistakes that cause him much suffering. Finally, "Jamais Vu" by Axel Tairi was a pleasant surprise for me as he was the only author I had never heard of but I loved his story. I really hope to read more from him in the future. "Jamais Vu" is a more hard boiled style private detective story about a man trying to find his daughter that has been kidnapped into a human trafficking ring.
All in all four stories that would hold up just fine on their own but come together to make a powerful well built novel. I recommend this book to any fans of the author's previous work as well as those into the dark literary fiction of say Craig Davidson or Ken Bruen. I assure you Soul Standard will not disappoint.
July 6, 2016
The following is an excerpt from my review at This Is Horror. Read the rest at: http://bit.ly/29uUdPW
Shared world anthologies are rare in dark fiction, and when they do come along they are often subpar at best, with one or two good stories shoring up a collection of mediocre ones. So it’s a pleasure to come across one such as The Soul Standard, a book that brings us four outstanding authors with a quartet of tales all vying to be the best one in the bunch. While not technically horror, the book is as horrific as the worst nightmare you can imagine, each story sporting a cast of desperately broken characters and unreliable narrators, all living on the edge of the deep end, one or two of them maybe just past it.
Technically speaking The Soul Standard is an anthology of four interconnected novellas, but it doesn’t really read that way. The four authors brought together here, while all being very different in style and approach, have managed to bring the collection together so masterfully that it reads more like one novel length story, each novella a thematically intertwined, vocally similar chapter, often referring to people, events, and locations from the ones that have gone before. And while those similarities do exist, the authors in no way restrained themselves from doing their own thing, adding their own unique flavor to this brutal, black as night collection.
Read the rest at: http://bit.ly/29uUdPW
Shared world anthologies are rare in dark fiction, and when they do come along they are often subpar at best, with one or two good stories shoring up a collection of mediocre ones. So it’s a pleasure to come across one such as The Soul Standard, a book that brings us four outstanding authors with a quartet of tales all vying to be the best one in the bunch. While not technically horror, the book is as horrific as the worst nightmare you can imagine, each story sporting a cast of desperately broken characters and unreliable narrators, all living on the edge of the deep end, one or two of them maybe just past it.
Technically speaking The Soul Standard is an anthology of four interconnected novellas, but it doesn’t really read that way. The four authors brought together here, while all being very different in style and approach, have managed to bring the collection together so masterfully that it reads more like one novel length story, each novella a thematically intertwined, vocally similar chapter, often referring to people, events, and locations from the ones that have gone before. And while those similarities do exist, the authors in no way restrained themselves from doing their own thing, adding their own unique flavor to this brutal, black as night collection.
Read the rest at: http://bit.ly/29uUdPW
June 30, 2016
As beautiful as a black rainbow, and every bit as rare, "The Soul Standard" is a MUST read!
Simply incredible, however, if you're looking for a "feel-good" book in the traditional sense, this isn't it. Don't get me wrong, there is a dark redemption that takes place in every story, but it's not sunshine and warm as much moonlight and black rainbows. A quick paced incredible read from each author, "The Soul Standard" is all too real, which makes it so much more enthralling. The comparison has been made to Frank Miller's "Sin City" and I understand the parallel, but "The Soul Standard" is SO much more. From Caleb Ross' "Four Corners" setting the tone of a bleak modern metropolis with its power players dealing in a new form of commodity, to Axel Taiari's "Jamais Vu" wrapping up with its tale of a seemingly hopeless task to be acomplished by an unlikely anti-hero. Not to dismiss Nik Korpon or Richard Thomas' equally bleak and edge-of-your-seat contributions in "Punhos Sagrados" (Korpon) and "Golden Geese" (Thomas) - this entire opus is one of the most entertaining reads I've been lucky enough to have access to. You will NOT be disappointed, unless you DON'T read this, in which case, it's your own fault for not knowing what everyone else is raving about. Personally, I put hope out for a sequel, or at least a revisit, sometime in the future. Fan-f'ing-tastic.
Simply incredible, however, if you're looking for a "feel-good" book in the traditional sense, this isn't it. Don't get me wrong, there is a dark redemption that takes place in every story, but it's not sunshine and warm as much moonlight and black rainbows. A quick paced incredible read from each author, "The Soul Standard" is all too real, which makes it so much more enthralling. The comparison has been made to Frank Miller's "Sin City" and I understand the parallel, but "The Soul Standard" is SO much more. From Caleb Ross' "Four Corners" setting the tone of a bleak modern metropolis with its power players dealing in a new form of commodity, to Axel Taiari's "Jamais Vu" wrapping up with its tale of a seemingly hopeless task to be acomplished by an unlikely anti-hero. Not to dismiss Nik Korpon or Richard Thomas' equally bleak and edge-of-your-seat contributions in "Punhos Sagrados" (Korpon) and "Golden Geese" (Thomas) - this entire opus is one of the most entertaining reads I've been lucky enough to have access to. You will NOT be disappointed, unless you DON'T read this, in which case, it's your own fault for not knowing what everyone else is raving about. Personally, I put hope out for a sequel, or at least a revisit, sometime in the future. Fan-f'ing-tastic.
July 31, 2016
3.5 stars. I liked the Richard Thomas story the best by far, but that's no surprise because I bought the book specifically to read his portion. I think he's great and the concept of the book is cool.
July 11, 2016
Wow. Review forthcoming.
July 23, 2016
Hear the complete review on our website: http://www.bookedpodcast.com/312-the-...
March 25, 2017
This review originally appeared here: http://wp.me/p74Qjk-3D
Soul Standard is a book encompassing four intertwining novellas, set in different areas of the same city, and in different seasons. Personally, I'd been waiting for about 4-5 years for this book, and while I'm late to the party it does not disappoint at all. I'll break down my thoughts on each novella individually in the order of the book, and finalize my thoughts on the book overall.
Four Corners — Caleb J. Ross
Four Corners is set in the Financial District where paper currency is dying and is quickly being replaced with blackmarket organ trading/organ harvesting, Favors, and Juice - a cocktail of drugs hinted at having a science fictional inception. The story follows an accountant named Max where his past meets his present colliding with the ruthlessness of Max's boss Mr. Reiss, a construction/financial mogul who has seedier ties to The City, and an old flame from his childhood. A story built on sin and how it'll always catch up to you, like a hellhound. A lot of the world building for The City, and the following stories is centered here. An opener that'll leave a hole in your gut.
Packed with great writing and incredibly interesting concepts like a man wrapping tape around his body so when he throws himself outside of a building his organs will still be intact for his family to harvest. Brutal stuff.
Punhos Sagrados — Nik Korpon
Punhos Sagrados is set in the Red Light District, and while this may get you thinking this will be a dark sex-filled story, it's anything but. This tragedy laden story follows Marcel, bareknuckle boxer who's heading towards a downward spiral in his fighting career doing anything he can to care for his mentally ill wife, Mona. All he wants is to make enough money to give Mona the proper care she deserves, and set them back on the path to a normal life. Enter Carissa, a bar-lounge singer who stirs things in Marcel he hasn't felt in years. It all comes to head when Marcel take a side hustle with Carissa sending them both into a spiral neither will return whole from. It's a surprisingly emotional story.
Nik's writing is scalpel sharp, and in my opinion, he writes action like no other. A good chunk of the story revolves around Marcel's time in the ring, and in the hands of a lesser writer this would flat on its face. Nik's does not, and it makes the story all the more powerful.
Golden Geese — Richard Thomas
Golden Geese is set in the Outskirts, an area outside of the city filled with farmland and largely absent of people. It follows the story of Trevor, a man who is addicted to Juice and has come to the Outskirt to escape the repercussions from his past actions in The City. His job is mostly waste management...of the human variety. He is left packages—fingers, decapitated heads, ankles, feet, etc, and disposes them in a pig pen where the animals have a penchant for human meat and blood. It's a nice homage to the Hannibal film (2001). The story expands upon on the established world building found in Four Corners touching on the shadows within the shadows such as the unspeakable crimes of The City, the origins of Juice, and the kinks of the rich and powerful of The City. It's a story of man on his last legs, desperately looking for any measure of redemption. It's one of the more violent, and grim/bleaker stories in Soul Standard.
Richard's writing is sharp, although at times his prose feels a bit forced in the sense that it's tailored to fit the bleak aesthetic of noir instead of the story doing that on its own. Bleakness for the sake of bleakness, as it were. Overall, the story is impressive in it's use of violence, and the tenor of the voice carrying it throughout.
Jamais Vu — Axel Taiari
Jamais Vu is set in Ghost Town, a ghetto of sorts for The City. It follows Jules Lethe, a man searching for his missing daughter. This is made increasingly complicated because of the condition he suffers from: prosopagnosia, an inability to recognize faces. I don't want to say too much about this story other because it NEEDS to be read. It's one of the most emotionally impactful stories I've read in a very long time. It renders the unimaginable loss of a child real. A vitally powerful ending to an incredible book.
Phew...Axel's writing here is just next level. His prose is layered with literary reference ranging from Sherlock Holmes, to Shakespeare, to Dante. You can find more about the references he tucked into his prose here.
Punhos Sagrados and Jamais Vu are my personal standouts of The Soul Standard. However, if any of these authors are new to you, then I think The Soul Standard is a good entry point for you to dig into. Each author's distinct voice can be found here, and it's a testament of their skill to pull off a shared world as interesting as this one. Each author has something unique and interesting to offer you as a reader, and you won't be disappointed. This has all the smatterings of black, white, grey, and red you could possibly imagine. Bleak, violent, and noir as fuck it's a collection unlike any other.
5/5
Soul Standard is a book encompassing four intertwining novellas, set in different areas of the same city, and in different seasons. Personally, I'd been waiting for about 4-5 years for this book, and while I'm late to the party it does not disappoint at all. I'll break down my thoughts on each novella individually in the order of the book, and finalize my thoughts on the book overall.
Four Corners — Caleb J. Ross
Four Corners is set in the Financial District where paper currency is dying and is quickly being replaced with blackmarket organ trading/organ harvesting, Favors, and Juice - a cocktail of drugs hinted at having a science fictional inception. The story follows an accountant named Max where his past meets his present colliding with the ruthlessness of Max's boss Mr. Reiss, a construction/financial mogul who has seedier ties to The City, and an old flame from his childhood. A story built on sin and how it'll always catch up to you, like a hellhound. A lot of the world building for The City, and the following stories is centered here. An opener that'll leave a hole in your gut.
Packed with great writing and incredibly interesting concepts like a man wrapping tape around his body so when he throws himself outside of a building his organs will still be intact for his family to harvest. Brutal stuff.
Punhos Sagrados — Nik Korpon
Punhos Sagrados is set in the Red Light District, and while this may get you thinking this will be a dark sex-filled story, it's anything but. This tragedy laden story follows Marcel, bareknuckle boxer who's heading towards a downward spiral in his fighting career doing anything he can to care for his mentally ill wife, Mona. All he wants is to make enough money to give Mona the proper care she deserves, and set them back on the path to a normal life. Enter Carissa, a bar-lounge singer who stirs things in Marcel he hasn't felt in years. It all comes to head when Marcel take a side hustle with Carissa sending them both into a spiral neither will return whole from. It's a surprisingly emotional story.
Nik's writing is scalpel sharp, and in my opinion, he writes action like no other. A good chunk of the story revolves around Marcel's time in the ring, and in the hands of a lesser writer this would flat on its face. Nik's does not, and it makes the story all the more powerful.
Golden Geese — Richard Thomas
Golden Geese is set in the Outskirts, an area outside of the city filled with farmland and largely absent of people. It follows the story of Trevor, a man who is addicted to Juice and has come to the Outskirt to escape the repercussions from his past actions in The City. His job is mostly waste management...of the human variety. He is left packages—fingers, decapitated heads, ankles, feet, etc, and disposes them in a pig pen where the animals have a penchant for human meat and blood. It's a nice homage to the Hannibal film (2001). The story expands upon on the established world building found in Four Corners touching on the shadows within the shadows such as the unspeakable crimes of The City, the origins of Juice, and the kinks of the rich and powerful of The City. It's a story of man on his last legs, desperately looking for any measure of redemption. It's one of the more violent, and grim/bleaker stories in Soul Standard.
Richard's writing is sharp, although at times his prose feels a bit forced in the sense that it's tailored to fit the bleak aesthetic of noir instead of the story doing that on its own. Bleakness for the sake of bleakness, as it were. Overall, the story is impressive in it's use of violence, and the tenor of the voice carrying it throughout.
Jamais Vu — Axel Taiari
Jamais Vu is set in Ghost Town, a ghetto of sorts for The City. It follows Jules Lethe, a man searching for his missing daughter. This is made increasingly complicated because of the condition he suffers from: prosopagnosia, an inability to recognize faces. I don't want to say too much about this story other because it NEEDS to be read. It's one of the most emotionally impactful stories I've read in a very long time. It renders the unimaginable loss of a child real. A vitally powerful ending to an incredible book.
Phew...Axel's writing here is just next level. His prose is layered with literary reference ranging from Sherlock Holmes, to Shakespeare, to Dante. You can find more about the references he tucked into his prose here.
Punhos Sagrados and Jamais Vu are my personal standouts of The Soul Standard. However, if any of these authors are new to you, then I think The Soul Standard is a good entry point for you to dig into. Each author's distinct voice can be found here, and it's a testament of their skill to pull off a shared world as interesting as this one. Each author has something unique and interesting to offer you as a reader, and you won't be disappointed. This has all the smatterings of black, white, grey, and red you could possibly imagine. Bleak, violent, and noir as fuck it's a collection unlike any other.
5/5
July 8, 2016
This book is absolutely a must read, at first you have no idea how it is all going to come together, and yet when it does.. it;' crazy magnificent. I love books like this
August 16, 2016
Vier interessante und düstere Fragmente in einer Zukunft, die ich lieber nicht so erleben möchte.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews