Falls the Shadow

Warmer #5

by Skip Horack, Ryan Burke (Narrator)

A North Carolina combat vet finds himself far from home on the front lines of an environmental battle to save the planet in an award-winning author’s provocative story of a twenty-first-century Wild West.

Joel Dunbar, the last branch of an Appalachian family tree, accepts a mysterious invitation from a billionaire plutocrat to attend a conservation expo in San Francisco. The rock star environmentalist has startling plans for the future and a caveat for Joel: don’t ask too many questions, and don’t divulge any answers. But when Joel befriends a rebellious eco-friendly Arizona rancher, he’s roped into a new kind of war, with new kinds of casualties.

Skip Horack’s Falls the Shadow is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction, Audiobook, Dystopia, Climate Change Fiction, Ebooks

1 pages, Audible Audio

First published October 30, 2018

Reviews

[Barbara]

I listened to “Falls the Shadow” twice. Still didn’t understand the point.

[Bren fall in love with the sea. · Rating 2 out of 5]

"What is the first animal that comes to your mind when I say the words ‘climate change’?”

Falls the Shadow (Warmer collection)
by Skip Horack


My review:

This was a selection I made because 1) I sometimes enjoy short stories and 2) it was about climate change and 3) the cover art is exquisite!

So this review will be short. I just couldn't get involved in his story. Not because the subject is not vitally important. And not because the writing is not good.

To be honest I had no idea what was going on most of the time. This does not often happen to me with short stories but this one was baffling. The main character is retired military who at one point shot a commercial. Now, he is at some sort of climate workshop, if you can call it that, but the point seems to be that there is alot of "wag the dog" going on. Not that Climate change is not real. That isn't it. But it was all about false advertising and just...not what I expected.

Understand: It was very confusing to me. There was barely any actual dialog and when there was, I could not follow that either.

I think I just chose wrong.

I was let down because I expected something so utterly different than what I got. I understand this is part of a series and I usually do not do series either.

I love the title, subject matter and even Joe was an interesting man. But I wish it had been a tad easier to follow. Very complex for such a short story.

Would love to know other peoples' thoughts on this one.

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried listening to the audio version of this story multiple times. I just can't do it.

The narrator seems rushed....reads way to fast and runs his words together. I have partial hearing loss. His voice and reading style made it impossible for me to understand what he was saying.

The story rambles. Long sentences. Takes forever to make a point. Just......wanders too much.

The audio is relatively short. 38 minutes. Even with rambling weird style and a bad narrator I should have been able to handle trying to listen for 38 minutes....but nope. I lasted about 10 minutes....multiple times...and gave up.

DNF. Yuck. Not for me. Moving on......

So far the Warmer Collection from Audible/Amazon originals has been a disappointment. I haven't really liked any of the selections yet. Falls the Shadow is the 5th short story/novella in the collection. Each selection is a variant on the concept of climate change....but the stories seem more about current social climate than environmental climate. But it's like they are maybe trying too hard? So far, the collection is falling flat for me. And, looking at the reviews....I'm not the only one who doesn't like these stories.

The Warmer Collection has seven stories in total. So I have two left. Maybe those two will be great. I hope so!

[Dez the Bookworm · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this is all it takes to be an author, sign me up

This story…how do I even begin to describe this story. I just won’t. I’m glad it wasn’t any longer than it was because it was painful. The writing is not completely terrible but is often disjointed. The storyline? Well, is there even a story here? I mean, I’m still not sure what the heck was happening.

[Gerhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following two clunkers in a row, Amazon’s Warmer series is back on track for me with a wonderfully oblique, beautifully written story by Skip Horack. My first reaction was that this is way too short, but that is just testament to the quality of the writing. Not a single misplaced word, and such evocative characters in North Carolina combat vet Joel Dunbar and millennial Mitch Moore, for whom the phrase ‘polar opposites’ seems to have been coined. Low-key, and written with an internal logic and rhythm that lets the reader seemingly drift untethered to an unexpectedly poignant conclusion, this is a fine example of the power of short fiction.

[Henry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Incomprehensible. Thankfully short.

[TraceyL · Rating 1 out of 5]

This story is about a corporate prank? I didn't really understand it.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought the main character, Joel Dunbar, in ‘Falls the Shadow’ by Skip Horack, a very downbeat young man. He is living with the cards that have been dealt him. I think he doesn’t see the point of fighting the fight against global warming. From his viewpoint, he’s right.

I have copied the book blurb:

”A North Carolina combat vet finds himself far from home on the front lines of an environmental battle to save the planet in an award-winning author’s provocative story of a twenty-first-century Wild West.

Joel Dunbar, the last branch of an Appalachian family tree, accepts a mysterious invitation from a billionaire plutocrat to attend a conservation expo in San Francisco. The rock star environmentalist has startling plans for the future and a caveat for Joel: don’t ask too many questions, and don’t divulge any answers. But when Joel befriends a rebellious eco-friendly Arizona rancher, he’s roped into a new kind of war, with new kinds of casualties.

Skip Horack’s Falls the Shadow is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.”

Rich and poor men in this short story are equally failing to protect the environment - but not because they don’t want to. It is because they have the feeling that saving the environment is already a lost cause. Every ‘battle’ now is just for appearances, a continuing pretense the war is still viable and winnable.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not much love around for this series or this short story itself.
Against such negativity it is easy to be drawn along. Harder to throw a stone at a window pane intact than one already broken by others.
Against the background of a hoax like publicity story to promote the dangers of climate change Falls the shadow tells the story of Joel Dunbar.
A combat vet, never much of a success in his own life or ambitions, he has a fine heritage and family line. Indeed previous generations of Dunbar’s did their bit for rare species and the environment.
Joel however is a failure by any standard and jumps at a chance to earn some easy money.
Clever ideas that don’t quite fit together.
I like the fact that Joel is a passive player in the issue of saving the planet from global warning and that in turn his life reflects a half-hearted approach to this important issue.
This might have been the author’s intention but may equally be the stretch of a reviewer trying to find some value in this book.

[betty hampton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring, no consistent story line, hard to follow. Hope his regular books are better and easier to follow the storyline. Very disappointing

and will not be rushing out to buy his books. Good ideas though, just a little too far fetched. Sorry!

[sherri · Rating 1 out of 5]

What????? Don't get this at all.

Made no sense. Could have evolved into a story but never did. Could just be me but it never went anywhere.

[Nyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that was depressing! *shrug* That's all I got.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was going to give this 2 stars, one for its potential . But no - the disappointment I feel in it never reaching anywhere is too strong to give it credit for failing.
I really was hoping for something here - I liked the main character, & would actually like to know more about him. But 38 minutes does NOT give any possibility of that.
Boo 😒

[Timothy Haggerty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wut?

Not sure what I just read seemed complete but I missed something along the way. Poor Joel was pretty lost. I got that everyone was lost in some respect perhaps our future simply going down the drain.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Odd and forced. What was the point?

[Jenn West · Rating 1 out of 5]

Huh?

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

As many other reviewers have stated, I totally didn't get this one. Something about a prank involving moving polar bears to Antarctica where they can eat all the penguins? If that was a spoiler, I apologize, because I'm not sure if it's a spoiler or not! Just seemed pointless.

I still give it 2 stars rather than 1 because it was readable and maybe it's just me missing the point. Well written, but just not sure what it was all about.

[Maria Vargas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was there even a story here? Read it twice and still don't get the author's point.

This was one of those stories where I had no idea what was going on. We have a veteran Joel Dunbar who at some point of his life made a commercial. Then we have a millennial called Mitch Moore, who honestly, I have no idea what he does.

There's this workshop about climate? I guess. Moore wants us to see that even though climate change "might be real" most of the advertisement we see every day is false?

[Lacy · Rating 1 out of 5]

What was this? There wasn't a point. Or maybe it was just beyond me.

[Yvette · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received this book for free with my Amazon prime account and listened to the audio version. I honestly have no idea what this book was about. Basically a man is in a commercial, he gets invited to an event no knowing anything about it, meets a strange rancher, feels embarrassed, has a meal at a restaurant. End. It's either so far over my head that I completely missed the point, or just poorly written.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange story. Not really sure what the author wanted to say.

[Marsha · Rating 1 out of 5]

The point of this was lost of me.

[Misty · Rating 1 out of 5]

I desperately tried to follow along through over-zealous internal character dialogue, over-the-top stereotypes and implausible plot lines—the key word being “tried”. I even attempted to reread it, convinced I’d missed something the first time around. (I didn’t). An ex-military mountain man turned commercial flash-in-the-pan star, an arrogant prick of an accidental millionaire and a boot-wearing hat-holding cowboy—there ya go. That’s the entire story. Oh, and a photo of a collared polar bear—mustn’t forget the bear. Now you know as much as I did after my two close reads, so you needn’t bothering reading this tripe. You’re welcome.

[J.M. Northup · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm uncertain...

This story was a little bizarre for me. It was definitely original and related to climate, but it felt scattered. There were some poignant comments, but overall, I was left feeling uncertain as to the point of the tale.

Neither good nor bad, this short was more "just a read." However, it didn't feel well developed because it was like going to a meeting where several people talk about nothing. I ended as I began; waiting for the story to take shape.

Another reader may love it, getting more from it than me. I hope they do. The protagonist isn't a bad guy... I'm just not able to connect with this book.

[Bookphile · Rating 1 out of 5]

This read like the first chapter in a novel. Not a novel I'd particularly want to read, mind you, with its heavy-handed foreshadowing. I'm also not sure what point the author was trying to make here. Is he poking fun at rich people who are more gifted with good intentions than they are with sense? Is he writing about climate change? Is he writing about a vet having trouble adjusting to civilian life? The story is kind of about all three, but also kind of not. When it ended, I was like, "Where's the rest of this story?"

[Megan Collins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Joel Dunbar attends a conservation expo in California to serve as a validation prop and distraction to an announcement about the return of polar bears to the wild by a billionaire.
The narrative design is needlessly vague and complicated for this short. Our main character doesn't drive the story forward or participate until the out of time sync ending. The idea that people can sell a lie easier than they can handle the truth seems okay--but the message is murky and not given strong parallels to reality. It's not particularly informative. In short I didn't really enjoy it.

[Cmoore · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the hell happened to this story? I listened to it and felt that the end wasn't so much of a train wreck, but that the train actually jumped tracks and we ended up in a totally different story... It made my head swim, I even wondered if I'd missed part of it, and backed up to be sure. Nope, I didn't miss it, and it had to be the same story, cause our protagonist was there...
Narration was fine... hummm...

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author has a style of writing descriptive sentences that some may find interesting or hip but only annoyed me. He would have been better served using this style more sparingly. Beyond that, the story was a bit understated and heavy on the cynicism. I would have preferred a, not necessarily more upbeat but, more constructive ending.

[✨ Anna ✨ | ReadAllNight · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

More of a sketch than short story, just outlining one person and his connection to a gathering of environmentalists in San Francisco, far from his native North Carolina.

Interesting details about the tree native to Florida that are planted in NC due to dwindling amount and environmental hostilities.

[Chinara Ahmadova · Rating 3 out of 5]

İqlim dəyişikliyindən kommersiya məqsədilə istifadə etmək istəyən bir biznesmen və illər əvvəl təsadüfi reklamla gündəmə düşən bir aktyorun traji-komik görüşü. Yazıçı universitet professoru olduğundan bu cür zövqlü bir mövzunu çox dolayaraq, xırdalıqlarla yazdığı üçün empatiya qurmaqda çətinlik çəkdim və yavan qaldı, amma cli-fi'a yaraşan bir ideya işlənmişdi, kaş daha ahəngdar və uzun olaydı.