Checkmate & Other Stories [Kindle Edition]

Icy Sedgwick (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Fifteen previously published stories, collected together for the first time, spanning fantasy, horror, sci fi and speculative fiction. Among other things, Bleed Them Dry puts a new spin on vampires, talking corpses tell their side in The Dead Do Listen, a little girl is fascinated with an antique that hides a dark side in The Mirror Phase, and a devilish game of chess goes wrong in Checkmate.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 63 KB
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004J8HVXI
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #570,637 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Icy Sedgwick hails from Newcastle upon Tyne, in the north east of England, but currently lives in London.

Her first book, The First Tale, is the collected episodes of a steampunk serial set in Vertigo City, an alternative version of London, that ran for thirty episodes during 2010 - the e-book contains a link to an extra PDF of graphic extras, designed to round out the reader's experience of Vertigo. She has many more Tales from Vertigo City in the pipeline.

Her second book, Checkmate & Other Stories, collects the first fifteen short stories that she had published online. They range in length and genre, though a thread of weirdness runs through them all.

Icy is currently working on a pulp novella set in the Old West, a collection of short stories about a pirate and his telepathic parrot, and a supernatural YA novel starring a Cavalier ghost.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short but sweet, November 7, 2011

By 

Larry Kollar (Planet Georgia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Checkmate & Other Stories (Kindle Edition)

Icy Sedgwick is a #FridayFlash regular on Twitter, and "Checkmate" is a collection of 15 of her short pieces. It's a good choice for a rainy weekend afternoon or plane trip.

Synopsis: A collection of Icy's flash fiction, published between 2008 and mid-2010. The stories run the gamut of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, and are arranged in chronological order of publication.

Storytelling: Five stars. Icy has an amazing ability to write dark fiction with an oft-humorous twist. While all of them are well-written, six of the stories stand out as particularly memorable for me:

Midas Box -- a young woman's life takes a turn when she is given a very special box.

Checkmate -- in which the fate of the world is decided over a coffee shop chessboard.

My Bleeding Heart -- a macabre twist on an old pun.

Bleed Them Dry -- a vampire has more than one way to draw blood.

The Mirror Phase -- a creepy story of a little girl fascinated with a mirror.

The Dead Do Listen -- sometimes, the dead want to set the record straight!

Writing: Five stars. Like most #FridayFlash participants, Icy is versatile and can write well in many genres. In fact, her Western novel, "The Guns of Retribution," was recently released in paperback and eBook by Pulp Press.

Editing: Four stars. Checkmate stands out in the self/indie-published arena as having very few typos or other editing issues. I ran across maybe one or two minor issues. All books -- indie or otherwise -- should have this much care put into them. The only real glitch I ran across was a formatting thing: using the Kindle's "five-way" to move between stories put the original place of publication at the top of the page, and the title at the end of the previous page. This may have been something Smashwords did.

Summary: Brief as it is, this is a steal for 99¢. If you enjoy dark fiction, you'll find big enjoyment in these short works.