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Outside Inside: A collection of short stories
Outside Inside is a collection of eight short stories by Michael Gardner including the novella Gone Wonder Land. According to the author it's an epic mixed bag of stories that'll wrangle the gamut of human emotion from you. But really, it's eight stories for the price of three, so if you only like half of them it's still good value for money.
The collection includes:
Writer's Block
Breaking Point
Space Plumber
Goddammit, Larry!
Alexander Rollins Must Die
The Bunker
Henry & Isa
Gone Wonder Land
The collection includes:
Writer's Block
Breaking Point
Space Plumber
Goddammit, Larry!
Alexander Rollins Must Die
The Bunker
Henry & Isa
Gone Wonder Land
349 pages, Paperback
Published August 22, 2020
1 person want to read
About the author
Michael Gardner
20 books74 followersMichael Gardner writes stories from the twilight zone of his mind, a middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition and his sock drawer. Cross over if you dare.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 12, 2020
At long last, Michael Gardner has gathered a generous collection of his stand-alone short stories into one volume, and as a fan, I am delighted.
Gardner is a story-teller extraordinaire—a master of droll humor, heart-tugging poignancy, quirky characters, and surprise endings. He reminds me of a magician, drawing you in for a closer look, only to sweep away his cape and startle you with the unexpected. Witness the opening sentence of “Writer’s Block,” the first story in the book:
“Up to the moment a freak rupture in time and space opened in his work cubicle, Ralph Jeremiah Johnson Token—better known as ‘RJJ’—was an unremarkable man living an unremarkable forty-six year long life.” That anomaly hurtles him back to a 1954 where he discovers that his favorite author has never existed.
In “Breaking Point,” the man who has invented faster-than-light travel is confronted by the very real possibility that his maiden voyage is a one-way trip.
When an interdimensional space-time portal gets clogged, who ya gonna call? Why, Duncan Stool, “Space Plumber!”
Then there’s the protagonist of “Goddammit, Larry!” who learns that he is living in a computer game. (“It felt like discovering God at the bottom of your sock drawer.”)
With echoes of the movie, Stranger Than Fiction, “Alexander Rollins Must Die!” tells us the tongue-in-cheek story of what happens when an author tells his main character he is going to die, but not when or how.
I found “The Bunker,” an eerie tale of two men locked in a concrete bunker “until the time is right” the most upsetting, with its haunting foreshadowing of the COVID-19 quarantine that has locked us away from each other.
“Henry and Isa” is a strange and charming tale of the encounter between a businessman and a four-year-old girl on a train. Her innocent challenge about why he is bringing work with him on a holiday changes his life forever.
The final story is the novella-length “Gone Wonder Land,” about an autistic man whose world is shattered when the uncle who raised him dies. His plan to start a new life begins an epic adventure with global ramifications.
If you’ve already enjoyed these stories, you’ll want them altogether in one volume. If you haven’t read them, prepare to be amazed. Gardner will cast a spell over you, and you may have to read Outside Inside in one sitting.
My only complaint—and I couch this as an urgent plea to the author for correction—the Kindle version does not have an active table of contents. The individual stories are not hyperlinked, so the reader cannot jump to them for a re-reading. For a collection of this caliber, that may be a felony! (Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, and the laws in New Zealand are probably different from those in the U.S.)
What is not hyperbole is the five-star rating this collection so richly deserves. It is a marvelous example of what an author at the top of his game can do.
Gardner is a story-teller extraordinaire—a master of droll humor, heart-tugging poignancy, quirky characters, and surprise endings. He reminds me of a magician, drawing you in for a closer look, only to sweep away his cape and startle you with the unexpected. Witness the opening sentence of “Writer’s Block,” the first story in the book:
“Up to the moment a freak rupture in time and space opened in his work cubicle, Ralph Jeremiah Johnson Token—better known as ‘RJJ’—was an unremarkable man living an unremarkable forty-six year long life.” That anomaly hurtles him back to a 1954 where he discovers that his favorite author has never existed.
In “Breaking Point,” the man who has invented faster-than-light travel is confronted by the very real possibility that his maiden voyage is a one-way trip.
When an interdimensional space-time portal gets clogged, who ya gonna call? Why, Duncan Stool, “Space Plumber!”
Then there’s the protagonist of “Goddammit, Larry!” who learns that he is living in a computer game. (“It felt like discovering God at the bottom of your sock drawer.”)
With echoes of the movie, Stranger Than Fiction, “Alexander Rollins Must Die!” tells us the tongue-in-cheek story of what happens when an author tells his main character he is going to die, but not when or how.
I found “The Bunker,” an eerie tale of two men locked in a concrete bunker “until the time is right” the most upsetting, with its haunting foreshadowing of the COVID-19 quarantine that has locked us away from each other.
“Henry and Isa” is a strange and charming tale of the encounter between a businessman and a four-year-old girl on a train. Her innocent challenge about why he is bringing work with him on a holiday changes his life forever.
The final story is the novella-length “Gone Wonder Land,” about an autistic man whose world is shattered when the uncle who raised him dies. His plan to start a new life begins an epic adventure with global ramifications.
If you’ve already enjoyed these stories, you’ll want them altogether in one volume. If you haven’t read them, prepare to be amazed. Gardner will cast a spell over you, and you may have to read Outside Inside in one sitting.
My only complaint—and I couch this as an urgent plea to the author for correction—the Kindle version does not have an active table of contents. The individual stories are not hyperlinked, so the reader cannot jump to them for a re-reading. For a collection of this caliber, that may be a felony! (Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, and the laws in New Zealand are probably different from those in the U.S.)
What is not hyperbole is the five-star rating this collection so richly deserves. It is a marvelous example of what an author at the top of his game can do.
May 5, 2021
Came to this extraordinary collection of short stories via circuitous route. An entertaining read. Hope your travels bring you here, too!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews