The Road to Woop Woop, and Other Stories

by Eugen Bacon

The Road to Woop Woop is a lush collection of literary speculative stories that lauds the untraditional, the extraordinary, the strange, the peculiar, the unusual that exist within and on the borders of normalcy. These tales refuse to be easily categorized, and that’s a good thing: they are dirges that cross genres in astounding ways.

Over 20 provocative tales, with seven original to this collection, and previous works, including: “A Pining,” shortlisted, Bridport Prize; “A Case of Seeing,” honorable mention, Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Award; “Mahuika,” highly commended, Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) National Literary Awards; “Swimming with Daddy,” shortlisted, Alan Marshall Short Story Prize.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction, Ebooks

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2020

Reviews

[Mel (Epic Reading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m going to try very hard to be fair here. This is about 3.5 stars for me. I love clever, quirky, and twisty short stories with last line reveals. None of these are that kind. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good; because they are. Overall this is a decent collection of stories with paranormal, fairy tale, or existential spins. Worth a read.

It’s also note worthy as it is written by an Australian woman of colour. Certainly a minority not often found in writing circles. I would absolutely read more from Eugen Bacon in the future. In fact a couple of the stories in here, I think, need desperately to be made into longer stories. They have a lot of potential and could easily be fleshed out to be more than how they were presented here.

I know it’s always a fine line between word count and content and it’s certainly not always the right decision; but at least two stories have that quality. In between each of the stories are little snippets of tales that seemed to be native to Australia and like the type of tale you might tell to a child. I really adored these, and the illustrations were lovely!! They broke up the larger stories nicely, and in some cases setup a feel for the next story. This showed that the order of the stories was very intentional and I do appreciate that kind of effort being put in to make the reader feel immersed; even when each story is its own.

Certainly worth a pickup and read; and an author to watch for!

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

[Queralt✨ · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am sad to say this was very much not for me. The book had been on my radar for quite a while and I finally picked it up only to be disappointed; maybe my expectations were too high? I was expecting wacky speculative fiction and I guess a few creepy stories (due to the horror tags), but it was just... meh speculative fiction.

I did not especially like the writing, it felt very plain, there was not enough exposition, and it felt like a lot of telling and not showing - this is just my opinion obviously, and it didn't do it for me personally.

At one point she writes about an author: The author wants to build a set of events. (...) He wants to be true to his learnings on the art of suspense. He wants to make sure that all is not revealed at the start. He worries. If he manages the use of suspense well, what if the reveal comes too late? He is nervous. What if he runs out of story? He is restless. What if the reader gets unhooked? And I just felt like most of the stories ran 'out of story' before they ever began.

Anyways, I rated everything 1-2 stars except Snow Metal which was a 3 stars.

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Woop Woop means nowhere in Australian slang. Besides a great titles and an equally great cover, what attracted me to this book was mainly the diversity perspective. I’ve read lots of African fiction and Black fiction from US and Britain, but never from Australia and I was interested to find out how to author blended her flavors as it were. Some of it, it seems much in the same way as some other things I’ve read, going for something like magical realism or just magic, infusing African mythology into everyday lives. But other stories went in all kinds of directions, stylistically and thematically. Actually, that’s my favorite thing about this publisher, they put out such genuinely different books. I don’t always love them, but they are always interesting. This was more along the lines of interesting, because I didn’t quite connect with the author’s writing on an emotional level. But intellectually I certainly appreciated her style and talent and versatility. She definitely has a knack of putting her word sandwiches together in new and exciting ways. In the foreword an author I’ve read and enjoyed before compares her writing to a sort of jazz. I’m not sure it was jazz for me, it was more like a sort of freestyle poetry. Poetry, to be fair, isn’t really for me, much like most jazz, but there’s enough foundation to appreciate it without going wild for it. Or maybe it is like jazz in some of the nonlinear approach to storytelling, because I was thinking while reading it about how I’m probably more of a conventionally straightforward narration fan. At any rate, didn’t quite sing for me, but was good enough and different enough to warrant and maintain interest mostly and was short enough to pass for a fresh sampler instead of turning into an entire trying production. Definitely an acquired taste sort of thing. Unlike saying Woop Woop, which is always fun, for anyone. Thanks Netgalley.

[Sara]

The enduring
with the light of sun he tell me we will meet at water
am afried the sun forget brid color the wood gray
i ask how we visit another time
my eyes open at that land
true i will love y
ask flower like thousoand poem to y
still i trust white and yallow flower near the street
all the sentense end at y

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Road To Woop Woop And Other Stories has magical realism and poetry in its DNA, and it is not afraid to show it. Bacon laces many of her stories with poetic writing, which sometimes works beautifully, and at other moments it becomes a bit much, leaving me feeling like I'm part of Creative Writing class.

So you get a sentence like "He still didn’t answer but his silence never left the table or the saucer or her heart— it lurked everywhere it could hurt.", which is poetic while still being clear in its poetry. Many more times you'll get something like "Vision dipped her thoughts in K’s coffee and sought for answers buried in dates and resentments in the muddied froth." (Vision is a character name here) or "She tastes of rain and sun and snow.", which sound like they mean something, but their poetry actually makes them wishy-washy and vague.

The stories are a true grabbag - there's the aformentioned magical realist semi-fairy tales, there's contemporary drama, science-fiction, fantasy, crime noir. Too many of the stories are too sleight to actually make much of a mark, the stories just suddenly end, as if they were an idea quickly jotted down, to be expanded later.

2.5 stars

(Kindly received a review copy from Meerkat Press through NetGalley)

The Road To Woop Woop - 3.5 stars
Swimming With Daddy - 4 stars
A Nursery Rhyme - 3 stars
The One Who Sees - 3.5 stars
Beatitudes - 3 stars
Snow Metal - 3.5 stars
A Maji Maji Chronicle - 3.5 stars
A Good Ball - 2 stars
A Case Of Seeing - 1 star
The Enduring - 2.5 stars
Five-Second Button - 4 stars
Diminy: Conception, Articulation And Subsequent Development - 2 stars
Mahuika - 3 stars
Being Marcus - 3 stars
Scars Of Grief - 3 stars
The Animal I Am - 2 stars
Ace Zone - 2 stars
A Pining - 3 stars
Dying - 3 stars
Wolfmother - 2 stars
Touched - 2 stars
He Refused To Name It - 3 stars
A Man Full Of Shadows - 3.5 stars
Playback, Jury Of The Heart - 2 stars

[Thistle & Verse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review here: https://youtu.be/uQq_G5mMeF4

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Australia, the slang expression ‘woop woop’ can be used to describe ‘the middle of nowhere’. However, each of these twenty-four distinctive stories took me on a journey which always ended up somewhere, even if that final destination wasn’t quite where I’d imagined it would be and, in a nutshell, that captures for me much of the magic of Eugen Bacon’s awesome storytelling.
As always, I found that her writing defies being shoe-horned into any narrow genre, instead it encompasses elements of many, weaving them together in a range of speculative ways to create nuanced yet vivid word-pictures, images which are so much more than the sum of their constituent parts. Within this collection you’ll find shape-shifting characters, a re-imagining of ancestral stories from different cultures, time-travel, science fiction, astrology, vampiric characters, the supernatural, explorations of identity, race and gender – in fact I’m left wondering whether there’s any genre she hasn’t managed to speculatively incorporate into her lyrical story-telling.
Some of these stories are chilling, some disturbing, some poignant, some erotic, some sensuous, some humorous, with many incorporating a number of these elements. However, common to each story is the sense of passion which percolates through them, like the words through a stick of seaside rock. This is sometimes quietly gentle, sometimes explosive in its intensity, but is always conveyed using eloquent, poetic language which is a joy to read. In her reflections on love, loss and grief I find that there is an empathetic universality to her writing, something which transcends race, gender, ancestry, identity, yet without in any way diminishing the distinctive importance of each.
There was never a moment when I didn’t feel engrossed in these stories and think that the reason for this is because the richness of Eugen Bacon’s prose reflects an impression that she writes from the heart, thus creating a feeling of intimacy which immediately draws her readers into the various worlds she has created for her charismatic characters. I love her epigraph – For the stories we yearn to tell, the diversity of our voices. I am many, betwixt, a sum of cultures – as I feel that this captures so succinctly something which is central to the power of her evocative writing.
Although some of the stories in this wonderful collection are very short, none should be read quickly. The captivating quality of the writing, where not one word feels superfluous, made me want to take time, allow myself to become lost in the magic of each story. Then, at the end of each one, I found that I needed to stop and reflect on the journey which had transported me to a different place. So, at a very early stage in my reading, I made the decision to read just two or three each evening, as a ‘before bedtime treat’! I’d find it impossible to choose a favourite because each of the stories resonated in a unique way and, to do justice to them, I’d need to write twenty-four mini-reviews! Instead, what I will do is urge you to discover for yourself how special they are.
I can’t finish this review without mentioning Tricia Reeks’ striking and evocative cover design – the promise of a magical journey starts here!
With my thanks to Meerkat Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meerkat Press is quickly becoming one of my favorite presses. Not only are they some of the coolest book people out there, but they are cranking out some pretty cool fiction too! Which is why it hurts me a little to admit I'm kind of on the fence with this one.

For starters, hello!? Have you seen this cover?! It's absolutely to-die-for! I'm not a cover snob by any means but damn you guys. It's a serious beaut. And it's only par for the course with Meerkat. They've got a knack for making their books look goooooood.

Also, prepare yourselves. If you're like me and haven't read Eugen's writing before, the woman's prose is super stunning. I've seen it referred to as "cheeky, fiercely intelligent, resplendent, dark, delicious, and evocative" and hell yes to all of it. She writes on another level. And her writing is infused with cultural and geographic slang which was simultaneously fun and frustrating. And the settings of her stories are both realistic but also completely otherworldly.

And therein lies the rub.

In many cases, Eugen doesn't fully dislose the scifi or fantasy elements, where in others she slaps us in the face with it right up front. Some stories (The Road to Woop Woop, A Maji Maji Chronicle, A Case of Seeing, Dying, Touched, He Refused to Name it) were gut punchers and so gorgeous they took my breath away, and forced me to slow down and digest them because they were just. that. good. While others were harder to get into, the writing and dialogue so stilted and strange that I found myself struggling to capture what was going on and rushed through them just to get the next one.

Overall, it was a very uneven collection for me, with many of my favorite stories appearing towards the latter part of the book, but one that I am glad I picked up.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woop Woop is an Australian phrase for a destination outside your area.  The Road to Woop Woop is a collection of short stories by Australian writers that fall somewhere into the speculative fiction category.  Each story led me on a journey; some of the journeys were to places very familiar and some were to places unknown.  Like any collection of short stories, there were some stories that I liked better than others and characters that I wanted to stay with longer.  Most of these stories had me thinking deeply about humanity and the state of the world.  
Some of my favorite stories are: A Maji Maji Chronicle, A Case of Seeing, Five-Second Button, Being Marcus and Dying.  A Maji Maji Chronicle follows a magician father and son as they travel back in time to a native village in 1905 as they are being invaded by white men.  The father gives the village leader a magical gift that alters the timeline.  This story had me thinking about the effects of a single moment in history as well as greed and the balance of power.  A Case of Seeing is a great science-fiction mystery that had me wanting more as a Detective with a supernatural gift is called to the crime scene for the death of a Nobel Prize candidate.  Five-Second Button delves into a fantasy that we have probably all wanted to discover at some point, a chance to see your future.  What the character chooses to do with her life knowing her future is really interesting.  Being Marcus is a take on Brutus' betrayal of Caesar where Brutus was given a sentence of eternal life.   It was really interesting to see this character in the present day and the decisions he made.  Dying is a Groundhog's Day-esque humorous take on life, fate and who is ultimately pulling the strings.
This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 

[Sadie Forsythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever I review short stories I often preface it with the fact that short form isn't really my jam. I read it on occasion for various reasons, but it isn't my first love. I tell people this so that they can take it into account when deciding how much credence to give my particular review.

Having said all that, I think Bacon's stories were interesting and the writing was lyrical. I thought the collection thought-provoking and emotionally charged. There were times I wasn't entirely certain what was happening or if I'd wholly grokked the underlying meaning of the piece, but I enjoyed most of them.

[Missy (myweereads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You know how things happen and it feels like a dream you’re witnessing? But, somehow, you’re also in the dream that is most thoroughly a nightmare?"

The Road To Woop Woop and Other Stories by Eugen Bacon is a collection of speculative stories which range from the strange to the absolute peculiar covering untraditional ground to bring a voice to these unique tales.

In an interview with author Eugen Bacon we gather some insight into what drove her to write this unique collection.

When I came up with the idea of a collection, I wanted The Road To Woop Woop and Other Stories to be a body of longing, a sea of memories. I sought an overarching theme of something dying—be it a past, a future, a connection.

Some stories like “Dying”, “A Case of Seeing”, “Scars of Grief” and “A Nursery Rhyme” are splattered with literal deaths:

It hurt each time he died. The first time it happened, Bluey was on his way to Kinetic, the insurance firm he worked for. That morning he woke up to the alarm at 6 a.m. Showered, cerealed, took the lift to the ground floor. He was crossing the road to catch a No. 78 tram into the city when he went splat, flattened by a truck. A mural on the pavement: flesh, blood, brain and bile. (“Dying”)

Some like “The Road to Woop Woop”, “Beatitudes”, “Mahuika” and “The Enduring” have the metaphoric death, perhaps of a relationship, and an ensuring transformation.
Tumbling down the stretch, a confident glide, the 4WD is a beaut, over nineteen years old.
The argument is brand-new. Maps are convolutions, complicated like relationships. (“The Road to Woop Woop”)

Some like “He Refused to Name It”, “Being Marcus” and “Playback, Jury of the Heart” have both physical and metaphoric deaths that are also awakenings.
Today, he does not bear the persona of Marcus, the fine gym instructor. He feels like Brutus. And most Brutuses he’s come across in this world are canine. “Here, Brutus! Fetch!”
So today Marcus feels like a dog. Same one that bit the hand off its adoring master. Same one that joined the inner circle centuries ago in a conspiracy that shore an empire of its hero. Caesar was a god. He could have saved himself. Almost did too. With a single sword, he could have taken them all, sliced their treacherous hearts one by one. But the moment he saw Brutus approaching with a dagger, “You too, child?” he said, and covered his face. Heartbroken and resigned.
But Marcus is changed. He is not Brutus anymore. (“Being Marcus”)

Others like “A Pining”, “Swimming with Daddy”, “The Animal I Am”, “Swimming with Daddy” and “The One Who Sees” are filled with yearning and memory, perhaps inside an unsayable dirge.
The rest like “A Good Ball” and “A Maji Maji Chronicle” have a hint of one or the other: a longing, a memory, a transformation, even death and transcendence in fragmentation and wholeness.

But even the darkness is a playfulness that extends Roland Barthes’ pleasure of the text, where things are made and unmade; Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction that interrogates the meaning of text; Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s rhizome that has no beginning or end—it has no centre, but spreads, as epitomized in A Thousand Plateaus (1987).

In writing, mine is a principle of multiplicity. A rhizome that has no rules or laws—it is between things, interbeing, intermezzo. It continuously adapts to embrace other multiplicities.
I am always curious, experimenting. My writing can be a distortion that is a wholeness, a divergence that finds its own synchrony in a textual quest for answers.

And readers get it—reviews tell me this. For which I’m grateful.

[Syeda Sumayya Tariq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alright, first things first, I just love the cover, so unique and eye-grabbing, and the title too, very creative and just perfect for this short story collection. This is the kind of book I would love to keep on my bookshelf.

It’s a collection of 20 short stories, on a wide array of subjects, all unique, and out of the box in their ideas. What’s special about this collection is the writing style, so lyrical, poetic, and kind of abstract. It’s not something that I often like to read, I like my stories, especially the short ones, very clear in what they want to convey. These stories really made me turn the gears of my mind and read between the lines to fully understand what was happening, but it did not take away the beauty of the prose, at times it was the only thing that kept me going, just to see how these words would carry the story that's so out there, and this lyrical prose only added more feel to it.

I’m not a big fan of abstract stories but for those of us who are, this is a must-read, one after another, this is a treasure trove of mind-boggling, strange, yet captivating stories, and even though I wasn’t able to fully appreciate them I can tell there’s something really beautiful about both the writing style and these ideas. I’m rating this 3.5 stars rounded off to 4.

I received an eARC of this book via Netgalley, authors, and publishers. All opinions are my own. Pub date Dec 1st, 2020.

[Ariel (ariel_reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the most unique anthologies I've ever read! Each story I went in having no idea what to expect, and I really enjoyed that kind of a surprise. This ultimately was a really cool introduction to Eugen Bacon's writing and I'd love to continue to read her work.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories that speculate, push the boundaries on normalcy, and explore the strange and untraditional comprise the twenty-four stories within Eugen Bacon’s The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories.

To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.

These short stories have interesting premises that are explored in both darkness and light, playful manners with writing that has an emotionally captivating and magical quality to it. Each story has a unique feeling to it as it blends aspects from different genres and presents something that is both familiar yet wildly, imaginatively new that implores you to think, which makes it difficult to adequately and succinctly describe a generalized genre or atmosphere of the tales; however, it’s easy, and appropriate, to say that there’s an element of magic and myth wrapped around a more traditional or mundane reality. There were ample descriptions of swimming and water throughout the various stories in this collection, which resonated greatly with me as a former competitive swimmer. Some of the stories read as fairly straightforward and easy to grasp while others read as rather more puzzling, absorbing readers into the narrative to work out what’s occurring; as with any collection of short stories I’ve read, there were those that were stronger or more compelling and those that I didn’t fully connect with but were still intriguing in their own way.

Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Shomeret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an invitation from Meerkat to participate in the blog tour for The Road to Woop Woop, a single author short story anthology by Eugen Bacon. I've never read Eugen Bacon, and short story anthologies have been widely characterized as being like a box of chocolates. So I could only expect to be surprised.

Flare, the protagonist of "Touched" was repeatedly told "You are the favorite." This story was my favorite because she used her divine gift responsibly. Flare only flared to maximum when she felt under serious threat.

There were other stories that I considered good, but didn't impact me as much. There were also a number of stories that didn't impact me at all for personal reasons, but I still thought that every story in this anthology was well written.

For my complete review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given a copy of this book to supply a blurb for the publisher. Having not read Eugen Bacon before I didn't know what to expect, but here was my honest opinion:

Eugen Bacon writes assured, lyrical prose wherein timeless tales bordering multiple genres are hunkered. At the conflux of myth and memory, where cultures meet and twine, her stories devour the past whilst illuminating the future. Reading Bacon is an immersement, a journey. The stories she tells are those to relish.

[Greg Öman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read. Some of the stories were a bit difficult to follow but some pretty unique writing.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection with a unique voice and wide-ranging styles and themes. This would be a good pick for someone looking for unusual and evocative stories to read between times. The whole book feels liminal. If you read these before bed, you'd have weird dreams. If you read them on the commute, you'd spin tales about the people around you and their relationships and secrets. There's a slant-wise syntax happening, but you get used to it and it become its own rhythm.

Thank you to NetGalley and Meerkat Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kind of stories - truly unique and often strange! Bacon’s vivid writing style requires your full attention but it pays off as you’re brought to amazing times and places while reading.
Favorite stories include: Swimming with Daddy, A Nursery Rhyme, and The Enduring.
Looking forward to reading more from Eugene Bacon!

Thank you to Eugen Bacon, Meerkat Press, and #NetGallery for an eARC of #TheRoadtoWoopWoopandOtherStories in exchange for an honest review. Review will be posted on NetGallery, Goodreads, and Facebook.

[CorrieGM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange, beautiful, poetical, enticing stories.
The stories are not very easy to read.
Part of the problem is, that I am not a native speaker of English. Normally that does not matter very much.
But now I did not understand the first story, partly due to the fact that I do not know anything about cars and that I am not a good map reader. I was also mistaken about the sex of the 'you' (quite interesting by the way, this happened more often). When I read the story a second time, it was still a strange story, but at least I understood what I was reading.
The second story (no, I am not going to tell you about all those stories) was sweet. This sentence stands in my mind: 'Does grief take a holiday?' Beautiful.
The writer lives in Australia, I live in Europe. The entire setting of the stories is strange to me.
Some stories made less impression, some of them made me sad. I loved the story ‘Mahuika’, I had to laugh aloud. But most of the time the stories made me wonder. Wonder about the story, wonder about the way the story was written.
Eugen Bacon is just a very good writer.

[nvsblmnstr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow Bacon sure knows how to write beautifully! Some sentences and text structures leap off the page and slap the reader (in a good way), but because it is written in this highly stylized and lyrical way it was hard to understand most of these stories. Unfortunately that means I was unable to connect to many of the themes the author is trying to highlight. I know a lot of what is written is meant to draw out the reader’s emotions regarding relationships, family, diversity, society, inner self, and so on. It was definitely a blast to read all of the magical realism, fantasy, science fiction, and mythological inspirations that permeate these pages. The highlights for me were the titular story and A Maji Maji Chronicle. I just need a different perspective on all of the other stories.

[Angela Maher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully unusual and unique collection of stories. It's difficult to pigeonhole them, but perhaps they are best described as literary speculative fiction.
This is not a book to sit down and read in one go. Each story is a form of challenge. A bite of an unfamiliar reality that has hooks in our own. The words are slippery, painting unfamiliar scenes, pieces of somewhere disorientating. They are not easy reading, and require absorption one at a time.

[Teresa Grabs · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories is certainly not for every reader. This collection was not for me despite loving anthologies. The writing style was choppy and hard to connect with (especially with 2nd person) but some readers may love it. The stories were okay but hard to enjoy.

Thank you NetGalley and Meerkat Press for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

[Julia Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Road to Woop Woop is a very unique collection of short stories by Eugen Bacon. I had never had the pleasure of reading her works before, so I was quick to accept an early review copy from the publisher. The book contains over 20 stories, some have been published before, and some were new.

What I found within the pages of this book were thought provoking and enchanting stories. They all flowed like poetry and varied greatly in genre. Like most short story collections there were some stories I didn't particularly like, which in this case might come down to the fact that I didn't understand them. I might have missed the underlying point of them, I'm not entirely sure to be honest.

I do think that the author has a way of pulling you into a story and describing the scenery in an almost mythical way.

Thanks to Meerkat Press for the review copy!

[Bel Hernández · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an e-copy of this book via Netgalley and I’m so glad I did. I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this. I knew it was a short, fantasy stories collection and I jumped headfirst into it, but I got so much more than I anticipated. The myth, the legends, the folklore of every piece are AMAZING and I feel like I was missing out in a very large and very rich part of folk tales.
The imagery is so resonant! The colors and the voices these pages portray made me lost completely, surrender myself into its impossible stories.
Some I liked better, some I felt deeper, but every piece in this collection is quite unique. I feared I was going to dislike some of them because a few are written in second person and that’s something I really don’t enjoy, but the length of the stories allowed me to just roll with it, and I was completely captivated by the third tale. The prose is powerful, and it has a pull that makes you pierce through the scenery and basically observe front row everything. It was kinda magical.
Some I want to re read because I liked them too much; some I want to re read because I feel I didn’t get them totally right. But I want to reread this book. And I hope it gets translated to Spanish so my mom can read it.

[Tracey Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eugen Bacon's collection, The Road to Woop Woop, contains such a variety of genres, it is hard to believe the stories are all written by the same author. But given Bacon is an established, multi award-winning author, it is no surprise she switches between fantasy worlds with ease.

The second story in this collection, Swimming with Daddy, absolutely floored me. What a beautiful portrayal of grief, and how the loved ones we lose remain as voices in our heads. Gorgeous. This is then followed by A Nursery Rhyme, a fable about parenting, and how dealing with children can sometimes be literally deadly.

There is so much to love in these stories, from the fantastic time-traveling lessons of A Maji Maji Chronicle, to how glimpses of our future can be devastating in unexpected ways in The Five Second Button, to deeply engrossing crime fiction in A Case of Seeing.

I read a lot of short stories, so my preferences are pretty well-established. I would have loved some of these stories to be a little longer, so I could selfishly spend more time with Bacon's creations. This collection consists of over 20 stories, but I feel the collection may have been stronger had this been whittled down a little.

I would recommend this book to everyone, as the variety ensure that there is a lot to enjoy. Bacon is an incredibly exciting writer, and I will absolutely continue to read her work.

[Classic Bhaer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come!

[Loestrella · Rating 5 out of 5]

As for as I am concerned such a good read!. This book is really fantastic.

[Josh Hedgepeth]

Thanks to NetGalley for an earc of this in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Let me stary by acknowledging that I DNFed this at 51%. I tried to persevere both because it was an arc but even more because the book has so few ratings (less than 60 as 3/2022). Furthermore, the fact that it has so few reviews meant that I also wanted to give a good rating if only to support a small author. Sadly, I won't be giving an overall rating because I just couldn't finish it.

Bacon presents us with a variety of stories that illustrates a willingness to explore a huge range of genres. That was what drew me to review it. Many of the stories were uniquely weird, but that weirdness was often more confusing than it was enticing. Part of the problem is length. I love a good short story, but many of these are very short. Those that weren't, still felt like they were merely the premise to a bigger story.

These complaints aren't enough to get me to DNF. If every story was like the last one I read (#11), I'd have happily stuck with it. I need to be engaged, and for most of these, I simply was not. The shortness of many of them are part of what made that difficult, coupled with the confusion at times. A longer story provides more time for the reader to pick up on the plot and the themes at large, and I am interested in giving Bacon another try for longer work (I see she has a new dystopia novel coming out soon/2022?). However, these stories are just not for me. I don't think they're objectively bad; almost every story has a really fascinating premise. If it sounds interesting to you, maybe give it a shot.

I wrote mini reviews of each story as I read them. You can read them below; they include commentary on my general thoughts up to that point as well.

Story reviews (the first 11)

#1 The first story is intriguing and very weird and surreal. Its a strong start, the titular story by which the collection is named by. But so much weirdness is such a small package is hard to do without leaving the reader wanting. The confusion will dominate my memory of this story more than the story itself sadly. 3.5/5 star.

#2 Swimming with Daddy.
An easier to follow story but one that didn't strike much of a cord. 3/5

#3 a nursery rhyme
Another intriguing story in a unique and well constructed world but one that feels like the making of a bigger story. It felt like I was thrust into the climax of a bigger story that I had no investment in. 3/5

#4 the one who sees & #5 beatitudes
Both 3.5. A bit more focus from me and I'm feeling a little more immersed. I thought I might have a 4 star here, especially #5 but I wasn't a fan of the ultimate direction

#6 Snow Metal
I entered this close to DNFing the connection because I'm largely struggling to connect. Ultimately, I liked this story, but like the others it felt plucked from a larger more complete narrative. 3-3.5 stars

#7 A Maji Mahi Chronicle
This is the first story I really really liked. It was not as abridged as many, but it did feel like there was more to the world worth telling. 4-4.5 stars

#8 A Good Ball
2/5 stars I don't get it. A competition of…what? Excerpts of obscure scenarios. I just don't get it.

#9 a case of seeing
a buddy cop story. Not my thing. I had little to no interest in it.2.5/5

# 10 The enduring 5-Mar
a more intriguing story, but one I failed to engage with. I fear I may be approaching DNFing this

#11 five-second button
Such a promising story that felt anticlimactic and dissatisfying. We finally have a story I was engaged with and intrigued by only to have it end abruptly. What's worse, the direction it went was odd and failed to make full use of its premise. Then the premise was itself a bit confusing and unclear, despite how intrigued I was by it. 3.5/5

DNF 51%

[Tonja Drecker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woop Woop is Australian slang for nowhere or a distant little town, which lays out of the way. I'm going to guess the author was going for the later, since these stories take one in unexpected directions.

There are 20 short stories in this collection, each one ranging in length and style. Some are lyrical, some traditional, and other exploratory. The author loves to march to her own beat and reach beyond the usual borders, and these tales do just that, while incorporating bits and pieces (or sometimes more) of Australian lore, myths and the like. Some are magical. Some are simply provocative, but every single one is original and leads down unexpected paths in strange directions...like a road to woop woop.

Like with all collections, there were some tales I enjoyed and some which simply weren't my thing. There is an underling thought to each of these, making them anything but light, quick reads. Whether they are worth the time to contemplate or not is something the reader will have to figure out for themselves. The author definitely stretches in various directions and lays more on the darker side of things. A few themes head toward being harsh and seductive, while others simply surprise and teeter toward odd. The author definitely gets kudos for letting her words fly in whatever way she sees best to get across certain emotions and ideas. And I can respect that even if I'm not a fan of every turn she takes.

It's well written and does provoke thought. The tales definitely steer clear of the usual market and add some fresh air to the reading pile. Fans of short stories which tend to the darker side, and those ready to stomp down a new direction will enjoy traveling these various paths and end up somewhere or even nowhere at all.

I received an ARC through Meerkat Press and found the collection packed with surprises.