Troy Blackford

Strange Way Out by Troy Blackford is a short story I downloaded through Kindle Unlimited (KU). It is surreal in tone. As it started out I thought the protagonist was a high school teenager but Sammy was an unemployed twenty-six-year-old living with his mother. He had a secret so secret that he didn’t know it. If he felt threatened to live in the world of reality, he took another hit from something he had purchased through the internet then slipped back into a comfortable world that reacted only to immediate stimuli. His only concern was to make sure that his mother didn’t know.

But someone found out that he was doing something probably illegal. They came to get him in the guise of police officers. For most police officers the sidearm of choice is not a chainsaw. Sammy was locked up briefly but escaped after the explosion that blew the walls out of his jail. Then it was time to run. Men with chainsaws were chasing him. A text message told him to enter a bunker. Although a good suggestion, he found it difficult to do. After much pounding on the door, it opened suddenly on its own. Entering the completely dark bunker he was attacked by a wrench-wielding Legacy. She claimed that was her name (it wasn’t). Not trusting each other completely, they knew they had to escape from the bunker before the chainsaw wielders broke through the bunker door. There were many routes and tunnels they could choose for their flight but the octopus in pursuit had many tentacles so their choices were somewhat limited.

And that leads us to the surprise ending. It was creative and introduced me to a service used by Sammy, his mom and Amanda (also known as Legacy). This is an interesting short story written by an independent author of the type to be read when you are on a boring trip or in a boring meeting. Even the copyright notice at the beginning of the story is interesting.… (més)

I recieved this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I started reading Through the Woods. The story starts with Ben (our main character) landing his dream job. From the very beginning the story revels in the mystery that swarms "the agency" and it's projects. The plot moves rather quickly and kept me turning pages.

Halfway through and I can only describe Through the Woods as a feline take on the movie "Bats". We are met with totally creepy cat experiment gone deadly wrong. I'll admit that there were several parts to this story that seemed to go over my head. I'll chalk them up to it being more my own lack of knowledge than anything the author did.

All in all, this was a very original story and I encourage you to give it a fair shot.… (més)

This is a very strange tale, and definitely the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from someone who'd lost everything and was living on the streets.

The premise is that four young guys, all smokers, see an old man shambling around every day when they are out on their smoke breaks. The old man is always talking, never stops or addresses anyone directly and refuses money or any other attempts to engage. He never stands still long enough for them to hear what he says. One day one of the young smokers has an idea, they pop a digital dictaphone in his pocket and record what he says for a few hours.

When they listen back they find an unexpectedly coherent story, told consciously to the recorder but veering into the fantastical after a short while.

As you'd expect from the premise this is a story mostly in tell rather than show, and it is consciously narrated in the same way that you might tell someone a story. The narrator is very unreliable, and even goes as far as telling us that right at the beginning. That said it is consistent throughout and the level of detail works. Clearly a lot of inventive imagination has been applied, either that or the author has met some people who are clearly off their trolleys. While remaining lucid and matter of fact there is a whole load of pure fantasy tucked into the latter part of the story, which works to explain the character as we see him at the beginning.

One thing I would have liked to have had expanded was the effect on the four smokers, they have an expository epilogue on how hearing the story has affected them, but it could as easily have had a little more to show us that, and their change of heart in seizing the moment rather than waiting until they are older to do things. That's a minor point though, overall I really liked the story.… (més)