Ms. Never

by Colin Dodds

Ms. Never is the story of a woman with apocalyptic depression, and a guy who buys human souls using the terms of service in cell-phone contracts. They fall in love and soon have to risk everything to save their family – and reality itself.“an exceptional work… a fantastical tale…” – Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

“a wildly entertaining novel.” – Indies Today (5/5 Stars – a finalist for the Indies Today Best Books of the Year Award)

“a remarkable new voice for fans of science fiction.” – The Book Commentary (5/5 Stars)

“a soaring novel, an imaginative, creative triumph” – Lost Coast Review

“extraordinary and unreservedly recommended…” – Midwest Book Review

“After reading Ms. Never, you will never again look at the world in the same way” – Samsara Magazine

“Smart and mysterious… sure to satisfy” – Independent Book Review

“(A) transfixing, fantastic narrative… The author executes the story with exacting, direct prose and characters who live and breathe in the mind… an exceptional work. Existential dread takes on new meaning in a fantastical tale…” – Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

“Ms. Never is a big-picture novel, which encompasses the nature of reality, the universe, and life after death… a crazy world, but even the craziest parts of it have a ring of truth to them… Dodds’ prose is exquisite… Farya’s battle is the battle we all to impose a meaning on a world we only partially understand by fighting to retain what is worthwhile and battling against those people and events that cheapen everything around us… Ms. Never is a soaring novel, an imaginative, creative triumph and one that has some power to change the reader” – Lost Coast Review

“Ms. Never is a trippy look at a distorted future with plenty of surprises. Colin Dodds channels Philip K. Dick with a splash of the Great Gatsby thrown in for glitz in this wildly entertaining novel.” – Indies Today (5/5 Stars)

“An iconoclastic, original and deftly crafted science fiction novel by an author with an impressive flair for the kind of imaginative and narrative driven storytelling that fully engages the reader from beginning to end… extraordinary and unreservedly recommended…” – Midwest Book Review

“A captivating plot… The prose is clear and delightful, the narrative voice compelling and the characters are people who live and breathe in the mind even as their own realities are built on shifting foundations… This novel is original and developed around a complex and bold idea… heralding a remarkable new voice for fans of science fiction.” – The Book Commentary (5/5 Stars)

“Smart and mysterious… With themes uniquely developed and a musicality to the prose… this is a great story with a powerful theme and just about enough mystery to keep you asking questions. It introduces a really unique concept on understanding depression and its impact… this one is sure to satisfy” – Independent Book Review

“Ms. Never is a novel about worlds both seen and unseen, and those that shape them… the efficient prose, fascinating characters, and mind-bending ideas make for an easy read… After reading Ms.

Genres: Fantasy, Ebooks, Fiction, Science Fiction

435 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2019

About the author

Colin Dodds is an award-winning author and filmmaker, whose works include Pharoni, Ms. Never and The 6th Finger of Tommy the Goose. He grew up in Massachusetts and lived in California briefly, before finishing his education in New York City. Since then, he’s made his living as a journalist, editor, copywriter and video producer. His work has appeared in Gothamist, The Washington Post and more than three hundred other publications, and been praised by luminaries such as David Berman and Norman Mailer. Forget This Good Thing I Just Said, a first-of-its-kind literary and philosophical experience (the book form of which was a finalist for the Big Other Book Prize for Nonfiction), is available as an app for the iPhone. He lives in New York City, with his wife and children.

Reviews

[J.L. Slipak · Rating 3 out of 5]

MY THOUGHTS:

I received this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is a self-published science fiction book. I enjoyed reading the premise so welcome the author’s sending me a copy of the book to read and review.

Complex wouldn’t begin to explain this book. There are many plots, some sub-plots hidden within plots and many sub sub-plots… The bottom line is that there are two characters to focus on, Bryan and Farya. However, what happens in the many sub-plots affects the outcome of the goals of both Bryan and Farya. I have to say, I found this book so intense and somewhat far-fetched I had trouble keeping track of everything.

I think some feel science fictions have to be so complicated and multi-versa in order to be considered as a science fiction. They should remember, like all books, there is a requirement of a feasible plot that generates a beginning, middle and end–the end wrapping up loose ends and offering closures and explanations regarding all twists and turns within the plot.

I found a lot of the changes Farya was responsible for because of ‘seizures’ that wiped out moments in time, changing affected elements accordingly interesting enough. However, the author thought to add a love interest, and that this love interest buys souls… and somewhere in there, there’s a cell phone connection… Soul buying, and living life in the after-life by ruling planets created by soul-stealers… As if one plot wouldn’t being satisfying enough, the author throws in multiple story-lines, plus little ones in between to do what? Throw the reader off? As far as I know, this is not what science fiction should be about…

Is this going to be the new norm of science fiction? I hope not.

I accept in all genres there’s sub-plots along with the main plot story-line often offered to keep the story going, build tension and create conflict. This is all good. But I suffered jarring whiplash keeping up with all the new changes and different directions this book went that I really lost interest. That is a shame. I so wanted to support this book and other reviews seem to do just that.

Perhaps, this is above my level of understanding and I need to stand up so it doesn’t blow over my head.

Perhaps, this ‘type’ of science fiction, is simply not my type. All I can tell you is to pick up the book and read it for yourself. In all my fifty years of reading science fiction, there’s been nothing like it that I’ve read and I’ve read… A LOT! This may actually be a good thing.

Maybe that’s the point of this book. It could be a whole new aspect of science fiction that has not been written before. Who knows. I’m afraid, it just wasn’t something I enjoyed.

[Hank Hoeft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been a child in the 1960's and come of age in the 1970's, I read a lot of New Wave science fiction. It was a subgenre of which I was never particularly fond, but there were some books I enjoyed immensely, such as John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar. I also was fascinated by the works of Philip K. Dick, who isn't considered a New Wave sf author, but whom I always thought of as a proto-New Wave author the same way William Blake is considered a proto-Romanticist poet.

Brunner and Dick--the world-building of Brunner and the surrealism of Dick--irresistibly came to my mind while reading Colin Dodds' Ms. Never. I loved the twin ideas of a woman who can alter reality accidentally, and a man who becomes a billionaire by buying up people's souls, and I loved the wild flights of imagination in the way the world used to be--the way the world was supposed to be, before it all got changed and redacted. I also love the premise of why the world has grown so frustrating and dystopic. This is the first novel of Dodds' I've ever read--if this is typical of his work, I want to read his other novels as well.

[S. Jeyran Main · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ms. Never is a science fiction novel written about Ms. Never. Farya lives in a city that is depressed. She is the daughter of a famous astronaut and falls in love with Bryan, a divorced telecom CEO. His job is not all that it seems, and as they begin to get to know each other, they share secrets that could cost their lives.


Farya also possesses certain powers. If she lets her mind wander, reality then diminishes as if they never happened. I particularly enjoyed this part of the story. At times the work was hard to follow. There were too many side stories to understand exactly where the plot was heading; however, altogether, when it came to an end, I found myself pleased with the result.



The literature was strong, and that stood out for me since the work consisted of significant science fiction scenes. The story was addictive, and the characters were written with care, creating an intrigued sense of the notion. The story makes you wonder about the modern world and the impact it has on the quality of living.



I recommend this book to science fiction fans.

[Kerri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. I love the premise and was excited to read this story. Unfortunately, it was too convoluted and confusing for me. I may just not be in the right headspace to appreciate it now, but I found myself reading and re-reading entire passages to try and keep track of what was going on and that made it feel more like work. I am obviously in the minority here, but I gave it over 30% and just wasn't enjoying it at all.

[Casey Dorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colin Dodds’ Ms. Never is a big-picture novel, which encompasses the nature of reality, the universe, and life after death. It’s also a commentary on our times and a morality lesson. Farya Navurian is a young woman with a peculiar gift/curse: she can cause whole segments of reality to disappear. She doesn’t want to and she is horrified when it happens, especially when it happens on a large scale, something she calls a seizure. A part of a city may disappear, including the people in it. No one seems to notice, their personal recollections rearranged so that the places and people who are gone are written out—or mostly written out. Odd memories are left, unexplained feelings of loss, a general sense of depression and a longing for what once was, even if no one is sure what that was. Apparently, even larger removals happened before the story began. A future—or perhaps just an alternative—word disappeared, one in which her father was a heroic space explorer, where distant planets and the moon had been occupied to be replaced by a slimmed down 21st century world in which people went about their earth-bound activities fighting back a profound sense of loss for which they couldn’t account.
Farya seeks a normal life: a job, a relationship, friends. She has fastened on ways to prevent her seizures occurring, but they are only partially successful: listening to Thelonious Monk on her headphones, acting outrageously at the onset of a seizure, such as shouting “Fuck you, you fucking rapist fucking pig” and throwing her drink in her date’s face in the middle of bar.
Farya’s capability is not the only oddity in the world described in the book. Bryan, a businessman who eventually marries her, sells cell phones, which include the purchase of the buyer’s soul in the fine print of the contract. He wants to get out of the business, but the group to which he sells the bundled souls won’t let him. They are using the combine power of the souls to create new worlds for the pleasure of a few mega-rich people who can live and rule in those worlds when they die.
The world of Ms. Never is a crazy world, but even the craziest parts of it have a ring of truth to them. The author’s description could easily be a pessimistic picture of today:

“Something was very wrong with the world, the common mercies withdrawn, the pressure on the free-and-easy repetition of a predictable landscape, all the bad people getting too good at doing the bad things, all the foregone conclusions concluding too quickly. Every conversation a dirty fish tank of doomed pets eating and breathing their own waste, every sin remembered, every desire an accusation, every joy a trap, every man and woman standing in a deep ditch of depression waving over the rim for someone to bury them, everything built, every show put on, lazy slipshod short-term derivative, everyone saying there’s too much to do and no time or desire to do it.”

As the above quote illustrates, Colin Dodds’ prose is exquisite. My favorite lines describe a character’s experience, a character who, along with others, set out to fight against the loss and distortion of the universe: “The road rose; the world warped to meet them. The way was soggy—an interstate highway on a foggy night with untrustworthy signs.” Eventually that character is able to help Farya gain control over her frightening power, and in the end, the story becomes a battle between those who are profiting from the contracting for souls and the ability to create private universes and Farya and Bryan and Lourdes, the character in question as they try to restore a positive outlook and basic morality to the world around them. Farya recognizes the challenge when she attends a party for the super rich and connected thrown by the company who is gathering up souls to power new, personal universes:

“Farya comprehended the vicious pressure on the guests—even in this moment of vicarious triumph among good food, wine, and conversation…. The pressure and the bareness pressed on the wealthy at the top of the known world… It was the pressure of a shrinking world.”

Farya’s battle is the battle we all face: to impose a meaning on a world we only partially understand by fighting to retain what is worthwhile and battling against those people and events that cheapen everything around us.

Ms. Never is a soaring novel, an imaginative, creative triumph and one that has some power to change the reader. It blends reality and fantasy to a point that even I found myself looking up a concept (the “third eye” in infants, which I thought might be referring to the open fontanel, but wasn’t) to give myself a reality-check. It’s great entertainment and I recommend it highly.

Ms. Never by Colin Dodds will be released November 1, 2019 and may be preordered on Amazon.

[Leila Kheiry · Rating 2 out of 5]

So. Confused.

[Rhane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! What an imagination!

How to describe this book? It touches on morality, ethics, bravery, and human frailty. In a way it reminds me of C. S. Lewis. It is a deep and complex story with no easy answers. It will take some time for the impact of this work to be fully felt. I don’t know whether I’m satisfied with the resolution or not. Read it for yourself and see how you feel.

[ken kudek · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story line is one that you either like or will pass by.

The use of language, however, is akin to watching an artist brush with oils.

[Connie Zinsmeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

Never have I read a book so unusually fascinating with its story line. Farya discovers her "seizures" can cause permanent changes in history with a very select few who notice the difference. What should she do about it?

[James Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story, marvelous characters, vivid writing and outsta this world imagination

Excellent story, marvelous characters, vivid writing and outta this world imagination A brilliant writer and a major talent not to be missed

[TK · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I had to describe this book in a single word, that word would be "disjointed." I'm pretty sure the novel was couching a hidden chastisement of modern culture and the commoditization of everything, but honestly, whatever moral story may have been involved here just got lost in the weeds.

Shame too, since it started off pretty interesting. In the end, all I can say is that I finished the book, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort.

[Geoffrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. I couldn't tell where the story was going and didn't want to slog through it anymore.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Human souls market – a creative triumph!

New York author Colin Dodds is an American author of note - and one whose novels continue to reveal that he is likely to become one of our premiere writers. His roots are in Massachusetts but he was educated and lives in New York - Brooklyn to be exact. He is a widely published poet and the author of screenplays and now four novels - `Another Broken Wizard', `The Last Bad Job', `What Smiled at Him', ‘Windfall’,`Watershed', and now ‘Ms. Never.’ His topics are multifaceted, and attempting to label him with a genre is a complex task. And perhaps that is why he is so very fine at creating a new level of communication - dissecting contemporary political foibles, mystery, thrillers, paranormal aspects and autopsies of human behavior as though before a surgical theater of critical and disbelieving minds, examining the nature of reality, the universe, and life after death

What happens in MS. NEVER, while a mesmerizingly fascinating and addictive story, steps beyond the usual stories of late, and tackles the paranormal arena, succeeding in creating technology tangles and limits to same and prophesying where all this could lead should we not heed the information we address and the characters and story as he acts them out. The very intense story is summarized as ‘Farya Navurian seems like an ordinary young woman trying to get ahead in the city while struggling with depression. But her depression is anything but ordinary - it has the power to destroy time and space. Growing up the moody daughter of a space-faring hero of The Greater Anointed Imperial Ohioan Commonwealth, Farya annihilated most of that world and its history, leaving behind the husk-like Buckeye State. One day at a record swap, she meets Bryan, a divorced telecom CEO. More than record collecting, what they share is that they each carry a howling secret. Bryan’s business is a cover for a bigger operation that buys human souls and sells luxury afterlives using shady terms of service in mobile-phone contracts. The two of them fall in love, and as they start a life together, their secrets back them into a corner where they have to come clean - and take drastic steps - to save themselves, and possibly reality itself. Ms. Never is a distinctly 21st-century vision of consent, memory, and the ways we create and destroy the world every day.’

For this reader the important aspect of sharing thoughts here is to encourage those whose hunger for the new in writing will be stimulated to become submerged in this very contemporary landfall of a book. Colin Dodds has arrived.

[Paul Canady · Rating 4 out of 5]

A trippy ride. I had to go back and read a few paragraphs and pages a couple of times to make sure I'd read that right. But in the end, a great read that I'll back and read again. I'm a fan of Mr. Dodds' work!

[Portia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Farya and Bryan are the 2 main characters. Their story keeps running in parallel until they meet. There are other characters like Lourdes, who helped Farya mental exercises and Ethan. They are pivotal characters in building the stories. But beyond them, other characters who stress the storyline. The author has given a decent amount of introduction and depth to Farya and Bryan’s character. When it comes Farya’s character author has given intricate details. That was important given Farya has a unique ability.
It is literary fiction with an inkling of mystery and sci-fi. I enjoyed the style and the concept of the book. There were characters who didn’t add value to the story. The story wouldn’t change if the author removed them from the story. Most of the major characters are well- developed and harmonizes with the rest of the book. It’s a   thought-provoking book. And that synced with elements of mystery and sci-fi which makes it an extraordinary read.
Ms. Never is an interesting take on a challenging subject and this combined with emotions and will to do the right thing in the face of an intense dilemma.

Find the detailed review on:
https://ideasflyhigh.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/ms-never-arc-review/

[Sage Nestler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was overjoyed when I was presented with the opportunity to review Ms. Never. I am a woman struggling with Major Depressive Disorder, Quiet Borderline Personality Disorder, and Complex PTSD, so I am always looking for novels that accurately portray mental illness in a unique way. Ms. Never surpassed my expectations in this way. The novel's protagonist, Farya Navurian, suffers from depression, but instead of being presented as a damsel in distress, she ends up having superpowers as a byproduct of her mental illness. I have never read a book that portrays some of the symptoms of mental illness in this way, and I fell in love with Colin Dodds' one-of-a-kind story line.



Ms. Never is equal parts science fiction and romance, while portraying the complexities of modern life. Both of the primary characters of the novel - Farya and Bryan - are multifaceted and develop beautifully throughout the novel. I gobbled this novel up and yearned for more upon finishing. I am amazed and delighted by Dodd's genre bending novel and view of mental illness, and I can't recommend this novel enough. Ms. Never appeals to a variety of audiences due to its genre-crossing story line, and I hope that you will pick it up as soon as you can! This story will leave you forever changed.

[April Tolliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book for free in a Goodreads drawing.

Honestly, while I liked the book well enough, I felt there was too much going on, with too many different people and I started to get bored with all of the sub plots. It started to feel like it was dragging on and never going to end by 60% of the way through. I love the concept, and I love Farya's "condition" and I think I would have loved it more if more of the book focused on just that. There was a lot of other stuff that I felt myself skimming past. Maybe this isn't my genre. I encourage everyone to give it a shot.

[JAMES · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing and bold are the two words that first come to mind.

I don't want to sound hyperbolic, but the vision and the ideas in this book are almost beyond anything I have ever read. I think the closest comparison would be to Margaret Atwood, or maybe Neil Stephenson.

Well written, gripping, and funny.

I hope he gets a movie deal out of this!

[Karina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read it, but it was a chore. Just couldn't get into this one

[diane]

Great story

Fabulous, intelligent writing in this thought-provoking story. So much like our day, but futuristic. Shows a clear pathway of where we're potentially headed.

[K.B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had its moments of cleverness, and it drew me to the end by sheer willpower, but it was also a drawn out novel of whimsy, nonsense and disappointing resolutions.

While there are multiple POVs, they are mostly one-chapter disclosures, and the book revolves around two people: a man who made a fortune with a telecom business that relies on humanity's greed and laziness to con consumers into selling their souls through conditions hidden in the small print. And a woman for whom depression and absent-mindedness can literally change the world - a lack of conscious thought can obliterate entire cities or items from being, rewriting history and memory such that they never existed.

Obviously they are both interesting concepts, but it's not really clear how they fit together. There's no reason why it couldn't have been two separate stories, except for the fact that one eventually fixes the other, in a completely predictable and unimaginative way that didn't answer any of the lingering questions. Why can some people remember certain deleted things? How did she save the baby? What have we learned?

There's also unnecessarily whimsical prose: it's understandable that a person who can rewrite the universe may contemplate the meaning of existence, but flowery writing that sounds like two metaphors stuck together with a pretty adjective does not deep thoughts make. Yet there's cleverness too: the juxtaposition of the man spending billions of dollars and several years trying to eradicate something that the woman could do with a blink.

All in all, it had some really fascinating scenes, and I was immersed in the author's imagination, but Ms Never comes across like a dream: fragmented, slipping away even as you try to think of it, and downright weird.

It had already been a long day before Farya’s heartfelt confession of Ohioan astronauts, the elephant hotel across the street, the 50,000-year history of Ohio, and Thelonious Monk saving reality from a moody teenage girl.

[Sonja · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway and then took way too long to get around to reading it, but I did finally read it.

This book had a lot of really interesting concepts, but it had trouble grabbing my attention. It was interesting enough that I would pick it up again to see what happened next, but I never felt compelled to read more than 30-60 minutes at a time and sometimes I would go days or weeks between reading. It was interesting enough that I did keep reading to the end though. Part of me wonders if I would have done better with this book if I was listening to it while working on other stuff. The first act just felt really slow to me, but the last act went pretty fast and tied things in nicely from all the different chapters and POV sections in the book.

I do like that it touched on some stuff like file zipping applied to the universe and the Mandela effect. At one point I actually started searching for something that the book was talking about because I was like "I'm not familiar with this. What is this?" and it took me longer than it should have to realize it was a point the book was making about things that are common to the characters but then get erased from the reality we know.

If you like contemporary fiction with an overlay of some fantasy elements, you'll probably enjoy this book.

[Scot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hadn't read a description of this novel, I just dove into it, so when it started to sprinkle in touches of something a little off kilter into the plotline that was progressing in an interesting albeit real world mundane sort of way, I started to perk up, more curious. Then it took a nosedive into magical realism and i realized we were headed in a direction that was not at all what i expected, but intriguing.

Then the narrator, a beautiful but loner type woman named Fayva brushed into a handsome stranger named Bryan. No words were exchanged, they went on their own separate ways, but he took over narration and we see he is dealing with his own alternative tweaked aspect to reality. Both of their systems threaten the stability of the world and human existence as we know and believe them to function, so when they fall in love, as readers concerned with cosmological integrity, the novel begins an ascent toward an inevitable climax of universe shattering proportions.

Thought provoking and at times creepy, at times incisively profound, this is an unusual work of fiction, a bit hard to categorize. A touch of George Saunders, a touch of a Hallmark made for TV movie, a touch of conspiracy theory, with homage to Faust, set in a chic upscale NYC with oblique references to an alternative intergalactic empire based in Ohio.

[Leith Dudfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing

A really intriguing premise of a girl who has the power to change reality, mostly by destroying it. It is also the story of a man who trades souls for a living, but he doesn’t want to anymore. I enjoyed but I did find it jumped around a bit much for my liking and I had a little trouble following the narrative at times. Overall though, a very imaginative story and intriguing as to how it will all play out.

[Stephanie Bates · Rating 3 out of 5]

I eventually enjoyed this book but almost gave up. Initially it feels very disconnected and the purpose of tidbits & characters is unclear. That's not to say there shouldn't be mystery or unknowns as a story unfolds but here it lasted a tad too long or was a bit too disjointed.

[Brooke]

I did not finish this book.

Loved the premise of the story, but there was far too much going on that left me confused more than curious. I'm reading with intention this year and after two weeks I called an audible.

[David Pospisil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling story about morals and self-awareness.
A woman with the power to destroy time and space and her struggle for normal.
Great characters and world building.
The beginning is a little slow but it's worth the wait.

[Steph Elias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good one it gets going, I found it very slow and cofusing at first.

[Peter Aronson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two-and-three-quarters stars. Rather bleak and not well thought out -- human relative morality doesn't mix with souls and angels very well.

[Cher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept. Hard to explain but a good read