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Rejected
Collection of short stories, the common feature of which is that they were all previously rejected at least once when they were submitted to another publishing venue.
440 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
About the author
Brian Woods
51 books27 followersDuring the day, he writes software for an accounting software and business management software company. He tends to his salsa garden, his cats, and he spends time with his wife and kids. He is just the average husband with a normal routine.
But, at night, when the sun is gone and the moon is out, Brian Woods turns into a living legend. He writes fantasy, science fiction, and even some paranormal/horror stories.
Since 2011, Brian has gone on to publish many books, novellas, and short stories for more than five publishers.
He has been published along side great novelists like Roy C. Booth, Kevin J Anderson, and Tamara Scaggs.
Check out his newest novel, Valdity, or look into his other works with Werecat Tales, Suruale, Valkron, or even Chords of Charis.
And his editing work is everywhere, including his newest book from Tamara Scaggs, Retribution!
But, at night, when the sun is gone and the moon is out, Brian Woods turns into a living legend. He writes fantasy, science fiction, and even some paranormal/horror stories.
Since 2011, Brian has gone on to publish many books, novellas, and short stories for more than five publishers.
He has been published along side great novelists like Roy C. Booth, Kevin J Anderson, and Tamara Scaggs.
Check out his newest novel, Valdity, or look into his other works with Werecat Tales, Suruale, Valkron, or even Chords of Charis.
And his editing work is everywhere, including his newest book from Tamara Scaggs, Retribution!
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 28, 2023
When I read short story collections intermittently over a long period of time, my reactions are similarly written piecemeal, while they're fresh in my mind. That gives the reviews a choppy, and often repetitive, quality. I'm now trying to go back and edit some of those done in the past, to condense and rearrange them into unified wholes. Accordingly, I've now edited this one.
I received a free review copy of this story collection from my Goodreads friend Andrew Seddon, who has a story included in it. The unifying thread of the stories editor Wood included is that all of them were previously submitted to another publishing venue, but were rejected at least once (hence the title). As the short introduction here states, there are many reasons stories get rejected by editors (or by their assistants), many of which have nothing to do with their quality. His motive behind the collection seems to be to convince writers, and readers, that an editorial rejection isn't an infallible measure of a story's worth. As far as it goes, that's true (though I'd have rejected a number of those here myself, if I were an editor!). In all, 36 stories are included. While the name of the author is given with each story, the table of contents lists only the titles (which makes it impossible to get a quick overview of the contributors!), and no information is provided for any of them beyond the names.
It's impossible to pick a single worst story here –there are too many contenders. They include "The Skin Crawler" by Glen Damien Campbell, which is a sick celebration of particularly sadistic serial killing and misogyny, with no redeeming element at all; the repulsive, totally predictable vampire story "Labyrinth of the Undead" by Carl Thomas Fox, which substitutes the splatter-punk-style gory demises of its undeveloped and cardboard characters for anything resembling suspense or psychological depth; and "With the Wind" by Kevin Bannigan Jr., a miserable piece of trash in which we get to follow the saga of a carelessly dropped, wind-blown paper towel as it causes all sorts of tragic death and mayhem for dozens of humans (and one squirrel). For the author, it's a pulpit for preaching ultimate meaninglessness and pessimism, but it quickly becomes boring and predictable (especially because all of the characters are essentially "Red Shirts" with whom we have no emotional investment whatsoever). Vicarious sadism is a common note in all three, and all three authors palpably take pleasure in graphically depicting it for its own sake. These exercises in dreck should have stayed "Rejected."
There are no less than four --count 'em, four!-- “zombie apocalypse” tales in this single anthology (what are the odds?); and two of them are prime examples of the nihilistic and despairing messages that make me dislike that sub-genre. Stuart Conover's "Saving the Flock" blends these with a ham-handed anti-theistic and anti-Christian message. (Conover takes obvious glee in portraying a church as an ineffective sanctuary, and caricaturing the preacher as a self-serving, treacherous and delusional lout.)
While none of the rest are this bad, some of the rest of the stories here don't really succeed, either. "Eli's Coming" by David Perlmutter is heavily dependent on pop culture references for its whole conceit; if you don't recognize or aren't familiar with most of these (and I didn't, and wasn't) it loses its crucial element. While it has a real moral vision, Judi Calhoun's "The Crystal Blue Feather" is hard to get into and follow because it has an addled viewpoint character, and it uses intervention by a space alien as an unconvincing deus ex machina to create the ending the author wants. "Hellfire" by D. L. Turpin had possibilities, but they're mostly unrealized because the story stays at a spiritually shallow level, and too much surrealism confuses the storyline and muddles the symbolism. Joseph J. Patchen attempts cultural satire of American materialism in "American Death," but his treatment is too over the top for most readers to be apt to take very seriously, and much of his "humor" isn't as funny as he thinks it is (especially the crude and sexist humor, and the ridicule of overweight females and hoarders).
Four stories, though very different from each other in their settings (ranging from a fantasy-type world --though there's no magic element in the story-- to small-town Kansas in the middle of the 20th century, with two others in nameless contemporary urban settings) and premises, have in common a strict adherence to the basic canons of modern "literary" short fiction: a heavy concentration on banal detail, a basic ethos of bleakness and despair, and above all an avoidance of anything like real plot. These are lengthy vignettes, artistically drawn character studies of protagonists on one sort of meaningless treadmill or another, but they never do or decide anything constructive; if something happens (one of them is diagnosed with a brain tumor at the beginning), it happens TO them, not through their own agency. These are most definitely not my literary cup of tea. (I also deliberately skipped one that has a vulgarism in its title, as not being very promising.)
Several of the stories are flawed, but manage to entertain or create a connection with the reader. Gwen Veazey, in "Zyka's Last Escape," evokes a future Earth ravaged by global warming and economic collapse, and expecting a collision with asteroid fragments; those who can afford to are evacuating to Mars. Our protagonist (who can't afford to leave) is a computer-game addicted slacker who's beginning to try to take some responsibility for himself. We do become emotionally invested in him and engaged in his dystopian world; but ultimately this is a story that, in typical postmodernist fashion, doesn't go anywhere. Thomas Van Boening's "The Vines" is a passable sword-and-sorcery fantasy, but it begins in medias res and never lets us have much clue as to the broader story's beginning, which hurts its effectiveness some. The opposite problem affects Adam Zaleski's supernatural fiction yarn "Threefold" --it's highly original, with a likable protagonist, and Jenna (to me, at least) is a wonderfully intriguing character, but we're left wanting to know a great deal more; it reads like the beginning of a story cycle, but we're not given the rest of the cycle here. In "Three Prom Dresses," Priya Sridhar makes good use of Japanese folklore, but none of her characters are really well developed. Jo-Anne Russell's "Elements," the lead story, is a fantasy-type tale that suffers a bit from using unexplained "magic" as a deus ex machina to effect the outcome the writer wants; but I found it a satisfying story otherwise.
A number of the selections here, however, are actually enjoyable. In "Life, Death and Resurrect," Naching T. Kassa creates a zombie apocalypse story that actually isn't nihilistic and hopeless; and while his female protagonist denies that she's "tough," she's a lot more so than she gives herself credit for. "Glass Beads" and "The Blind Watchman" (by Emily Martha Sorensen and Paul Williams, respectively) are very different SF yarns of alien/human interaction, but both solid and thought provoking. Several other stories are basically morality tales in their own way, character studies of the kinds of persons we shouldn't let ourselves become, and descriptions of their comeuppances (sometimes not by the most ethical means, but in a way that we still recognize as well deserved). Benjamin Sperduto's "Homecoming" is a powerful, well-crafted piece of weird fiction, and "Grandma Hartley's Angel Earring" by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd deserves mention as an original and effective supernatural fiction yarn.
IMO, the best stories in this book include Andrew Seddon's Christmas-themed "The Christmas Shepherd" --the title character is a German Shepherd (of the four-footed sort)-- which illustrates many of the typical strong points of his fiction, as well as his abiding love for dogs; "And He Bought a Crooked Cat" by Fraser Sherman; and "New York's All Right (If You Like Saxophones)" by Marie Michaels. Though the former is set in 1957 and the latter in a future time perhaps 20-30 years from ours, both of the last two stories share more than the New York City geographical setting. Despite surface dissimilarities, they're thematically similar, in that they both successfully use surreal and uncanny, supernaturally-tinged events as metaphors for the need for freedom and spontaneity in human life. I also found three other selections excellent. "To the Winners Go the Spoils," by Tim McDaniel, is top-drawer humorous fantasy, laugh-aloud funny in places, with a scenario that's probably taken from the world of video games (it also reminds me of the board game Dungeon, with its assortment of treasure-hunting heroes vs. varied monsters). Franklin Charles Murdock's "Two Shades of White," set in a small Iowa town, begins at a funeral after a car accident has tragically claimed the life of a fifth-grade schoolboy. Not a very promising premise --but this one will stand your expectations on their head. Finally, "A Warrior's Second Chance" by Ramsey Lundock, focusing on a wheelchair-bound single mom who's a former competitive karate contender, is a classic example of what general fiction in the great tradition can be. It's about many things: the mother-daughter relationship, the responsibilities of a parent, what strength and self-reliance really mean and what their limitations are. Any of the early 20th-century short fiction masters would have been proud to have written it; it stands in direct continuity with the kind of work they created.
In summary, there are gems here, but you have to wade through a LOT of garbage to find them. It's also a poorly edited collection; the unevenness of the proofreading suggests that each author was expected to do his/her own, with no editorial assistance. The lack of any information at all about the contributors shortchanges the reader, and there's no good reason why they aren't named in the table of contents. Overall, the impression that's created is that Woods simply slapped the book together by combining whatever stories were submitted to him and dashing off a two-page preface. That's a poor parody of the work of a real editor, and a disservice to both the writers and the readers.
I received a free review copy of this story collection from my Goodreads friend Andrew Seddon, who has a story included in it. The unifying thread of the stories editor Wood included is that all of them were previously submitted to another publishing venue, but were rejected at least once (hence the title). As the short introduction here states, there are many reasons stories get rejected by editors (or by their assistants), many of which have nothing to do with their quality. His motive behind the collection seems to be to convince writers, and readers, that an editorial rejection isn't an infallible measure of a story's worth. As far as it goes, that's true (though I'd have rejected a number of those here myself, if I were an editor!). In all, 36 stories are included. While the name of the author is given with each story, the table of contents lists only the titles (which makes it impossible to get a quick overview of the contributors!), and no information is provided for any of them beyond the names.
It's impossible to pick a single worst story here –there are too many contenders. They include "The Skin Crawler" by Glen Damien Campbell, which is a sick celebration of particularly sadistic serial killing and misogyny, with no redeeming element at all; the repulsive, totally predictable vampire story "Labyrinth of the Undead" by Carl Thomas Fox, which substitutes the splatter-punk-style gory demises of its undeveloped and cardboard characters for anything resembling suspense or psychological depth; and "With the Wind" by Kevin Bannigan Jr., a miserable piece of trash in which we get to follow the saga of a carelessly dropped, wind-blown paper towel as it causes all sorts of tragic death and mayhem for dozens of humans (and one squirrel). For the author, it's a pulpit for preaching ultimate meaninglessness and pessimism, but it quickly becomes boring and predictable (especially because all of the characters are essentially "Red Shirts" with whom we have no emotional investment whatsoever). Vicarious sadism is a common note in all three, and all three authors palpably take pleasure in graphically depicting it for its own sake. These exercises in dreck should have stayed "Rejected."
There are no less than four --count 'em, four!-- “zombie apocalypse” tales in this single anthology (what are the odds?); and two of them are prime examples of the nihilistic and despairing messages that make me dislike that sub-genre. Stuart Conover's "Saving the Flock" blends these with a ham-handed anti-theistic and anti-Christian message. (Conover takes obvious glee in portraying a church as an ineffective sanctuary, and caricaturing the preacher as a self-serving, treacherous and delusional lout.)
While none of the rest are this bad, some of the rest of the stories here don't really succeed, either. "Eli's Coming" by David Perlmutter is heavily dependent on pop culture references for its whole conceit; if you don't recognize or aren't familiar with most of these (and I didn't, and wasn't) it loses its crucial element. While it has a real moral vision, Judi Calhoun's "The Crystal Blue Feather" is hard to get into and follow because it has an addled viewpoint character, and it uses intervention by a space alien as an unconvincing deus ex machina to create the ending the author wants. "Hellfire" by D. L. Turpin had possibilities, but they're mostly unrealized because the story stays at a spiritually shallow level, and too much surrealism confuses the storyline and muddles the symbolism. Joseph J. Patchen attempts cultural satire of American materialism in "American Death," but his treatment is too over the top for most readers to be apt to take very seriously, and much of his "humor" isn't as funny as he thinks it is (especially the crude and sexist humor, and the ridicule of overweight females and hoarders).
Four stories, though very different from each other in their settings (ranging from a fantasy-type world --though there's no magic element in the story-- to small-town Kansas in the middle of the 20th century, with two others in nameless contemporary urban settings) and premises, have in common a strict adherence to the basic canons of modern "literary" short fiction: a heavy concentration on banal detail, a basic ethos of bleakness and despair, and above all an avoidance of anything like real plot. These are lengthy vignettes, artistically drawn character studies of protagonists on one sort of meaningless treadmill or another, but they never do or decide anything constructive; if something happens (one of them is diagnosed with a brain tumor at the beginning), it happens TO them, not through their own agency. These are most definitely not my literary cup of tea. (I also deliberately skipped one that has a vulgarism in its title, as not being very promising.)
Several of the stories are flawed, but manage to entertain or create a connection with the reader. Gwen Veazey, in "Zyka's Last Escape," evokes a future Earth ravaged by global warming and economic collapse, and expecting a collision with asteroid fragments; those who can afford to are evacuating to Mars. Our protagonist (who can't afford to leave) is a computer-game addicted slacker who's beginning to try to take some responsibility for himself. We do become emotionally invested in him and engaged in his dystopian world; but ultimately this is a story that, in typical postmodernist fashion, doesn't go anywhere. Thomas Van Boening's "The Vines" is a passable sword-and-sorcery fantasy, but it begins in medias res and never lets us have much clue as to the broader story's beginning, which hurts its effectiveness some. The opposite problem affects Adam Zaleski's supernatural fiction yarn "Threefold" --it's highly original, with a likable protagonist, and Jenna (to me, at least) is a wonderfully intriguing character, but we're left wanting to know a great deal more; it reads like the beginning of a story cycle, but we're not given the rest of the cycle here. In "Three Prom Dresses," Priya Sridhar makes good use of Japanese folklore, but none of her characters are really well developed. Jo-Anne Russell's "Elements," the lead story, is a fantasy-type tale that suffers a bit from using unexplained "magic" as a deus ex machina to effect the outcome the writer wants; but I found it a satisfying story otherwise.
A number of the selections here, however, are actually enjoyable. In "Life, Death and Resurrect," Naching T. Kassa creates a zombie apocalypse story that actually isn't nihilistic and hopeless; and while his female protagonist denies that she's "tough," she's a lot more so than she gives herself credit for. "Glass Beads" and "The Blind Watchman" (by Emily Martha Sorensen and Paul Williams, respectively) are very different SF yarns of alien/human interaction, but both solid and thought provoking. Several other stories are basically morality tales in their own way, character studies of the kinds of persons we shouldn't let ourselves become, and descriptions of their comeuppances (sometimes not by the most ethical means, but in a way that we still recognize as well deserved). Benjamin Sperduto's "Homecoming" is a powerful, well-crafted piece of weird fiction, and "Grandma Hartley's Angel Earring" by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd deserves mention as an original and effective supernatural fiction yarn.
IMO, the best stories in this book include Andrew Seddon's Christmas-themed "The Christmas Shepherd" --the title character is a German Shepherd (of the four-footed sort)-- which illustrates many of the typical strong points of his fiction, as well as his abiding love for dogs; "And He Bought a Crooked Cat" by Fraser Sherman; and "New York's All Right (If You Like Saxophones)" by Marie Michaels. Though the former is set in 1957 and the latter in a future time perhaps 20-30 years from ours, both of the last two stories share more than the New York City geographical setting. Despite surface dissimilarities, they're thematically similar, in that they both successfully use surreal and uncanny, supernaturally-tinged events as metaphors for the need for freedom and spontaneity in human life. I also found three other selections excellent. "To the Winners Go the Spoils," by Tim McDaniel, is top-drawer humorous fantasy, laugh-aloud funny in places, with a scenario that's probably taken from the world of video games (it also reminds me of the board game Dungeon, with its assortment of treasure-hunting heroes vs. varied monsters). Franklin Charles Murdock's "Two Shades of White," set in a small Iowa town, begins at a funeral after a car accident has tragically claimed the life of a fifth-grade schoolboy. Not a very promising premise --but this one will stand your expectations on their head. Finally, "A Warrior's Second Chance" by Ramsey Lundock, focusing on a wheelchair-bound single mom who's a former competitive karate contender, is a classic example of what general fiction in the great tradition can be. It's about many things: the mother-daughter relationship, the responsibilities of a parent, what strength and self-reliance really mean and what their limitations are. Any of the early 20th-century short fiction masters would have been proud to have written it; it stands in direct continuity with the kind of work they created.
In summary, there are gems here, but you have to wade through a LOT of garbage to find them. It's also a poorly edited collection; the unevenness of the proofreading suggests that each author was expected to do his/her own, with no editorial assistance. The lack of any information at all about the contributors shortchanges the reader, and there's no good reason why they aren't named in the table of contents. Overall, the impression that's created is that Woods simply slapped the book together by combining whatever stories were submitted to him and dashing off a two-page preface. That's a poor parody of the work of a real editor, and a disservice to both the writers and the readers.
February 26, 2016
I must be shamefully clear, this is a biased review: I have a short story in it, "And He Bought a Crooked Cat" so on that basis alone, I think it deserves oh, ten stars. And there's a lot of stories in this book and I'm not about to make the effort of averaging them all out,so why not be biased?
The only common link is that they've all been rejected multiple times (including mine)—otherwise there's a huge variation in theme, genre, tone, etc. doesn't mean they suck. My favorites (besides my own) were "Christmas Shepherd" (a heartwarming Christmas story that actually works), "The Cleaners" (oddball story about an OCD man battling mean-spirited cleaners—it's better than that makes it sound) and the black-humored "The Pimple on Silverman's Ass."
The only common link is that they've all been rejected multiple times (including mine)—otherwise there's a huge variation in theme, genre, tone, etc. doesn't mean they suck. My favorites (besides my own) were "Christmas Shepherd" (a heartwarming Christmas story that actually works), "The Cleaners" (oddball story about an OCD man battling mean-spirited cleaners—it's better than that makes it sound) and the black-humored "The Pimple on Silverman's Ass."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews