Steve Vernon (1)

This is probably one of the strangest stories I have ever read. It is weird, bizarre and utterly hilarious.
Lady Cordelia Macbeth who would rather be called Dee, is mourning the loss of her son Hamilton. Hamilton you see had gone for a joyride in a stolen/borrowed vehicle and was killed quicker than you can say gesundheit!
She is so grief stricken that she contemplates suicide and throws herself into the ocean. Of course I realize that is not hilarious at all but luckily there was a pissed off octopus woman at the bottom of the ocean who was able to give Dee the ability to breathe underwater until the mossy brown and green mud horse showed up to take her back to the surface. Not that either of these occurrences were the most shocking things she saw under the ocean but I wouldn't want to give away too much. Now Dee was not too keen on telling anyone about these escapades, however when the mud horse showed up at her best friend Rhonda's house it kind of spilled the beans. I will leave you here, because if I told you more you wouldn't believe me anyway. It is probably best that you discover these quirky characters for yourself. I was up all night reading this story.

I received an advance copy of this book through the kindle scout program and was under no obligation to review it.
… (més)

This is a seriously solid collection of speculative fiction. Ignoring the part where three of the 5-star reviews are from authors featured in this collection, and the cover which is just so awful, and that it could have used at least one more once-over to correct some typos, this is a really really good collection!

First, I love reading stuff by Canadians. And this anthology includes stories by writers from every province and territory, which is extra Canadian! This is not classic sci-fi...sure, there's space travel and aliens and AI and monsters, but every story is different or weird in some new way. Like any short-story collection, there are some pieces I didn't love, but none of them were due to lack of skill from the author. The first two stories both had a China Mieville-y feel to them, Vermilion Wine about a mystery city in/around/on top of/inside of Italy, with no clues to its existence except for an old book about the ritual uses of wine, and The Wall about a strange membrane separating this world from another that likes to steal babies. The third story, 2020 Vision, is about a man who created a church of Spock. The fourth, Why Pete? a wonderfully written and poignant story of a woman waking up from a deep-sleep space pod to disaster on her spaceship; the fifth, one of my favourites in this collection, Bird Bones, about a boy living with his mad scientist father and genetically modified companion - this story has such a strange amount of heart for being 10 pages long. Look, I could go on, I'm just saying, pretty much every story is great. And if you don't like it, hey, it's short, I promise there's another good one waiting for you!

But actually I have to mention a couple more that I really liked: Sin A Squay, about two Native sisters found, decades later, by their old teacher from a Residential School, a literal monster. Hereinafter Referred To as the Ghost, about the invisible world of the undead and their bureaucracy of haunting. Graffiti Borealis about living graffiti on the streets of Montreal. Team Leader 2040 about a shitty future where the only jobs that old people and refugees can get are playing zombies in a popular and dangerous game in which the rich can pay to shoot people. And everyone is racist. Everybody Wins, about a mysterious lotto game that suddenly pops up across the world and which I'm sure you can all guess is NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.

And all the stories I didn't mention are also beautiful and eerie and gross and wonderful, even the ones I didn't love. So I guess I should start reading some of the past issues of this anthology! Go Canada! Go Canadian sci-fi!… (més)

Freaking chilling! Yes, this is a frightening little piece of work. Sam seems like a decent guy but he knows he’s stuck in a bad situation. The tension builds as Artie and Will are introduced into the story. It’s obvious that Artie has been cowed by Will at some point in the past and Will still holds power over him. Sam is facing two potential aggressors if he doesn’t go along with the program.

Will calls all the shots and he’s got a mean streak. Even offering up a different opinion while talking smack about baseball can land you in a world of hurt. Yet under all that redneck bravado, there’s a darker secret that the three share. Will is one of those perfect antagonists that you enjoy hating on.

In the background, the kids play. This shared dark secret is about to claim another victim, or three, depending on Sam’s next move. This story was full of delicious tension! As the book blurb says, Will has this big secret and figuring it out was just part of the tale. The ending left things a bit open as we never learn the why of the secret and that is part of it’s charm. I as the reader get to come up with my own ideas as to why Will has this secret. The aggressive baseball bat imagery made me think of a popular evil guy on a certain TV show. Scary!

I received a free copy of this book.

The Narration: Brandon Woodall did a good job with this story. He kept all the characters distinct and had a good little kid voice as well. His gruff authoritative voice for Will worked really well. There were no technical issues.… (més)