Fingers and other fantastic stories [Kindle Edition]

Marian Coman (Author), Carmen Dumitru (Translator), Raluca Chirvase (Translator)

Book Description

“When it comes to the Romania writers the one name that impressed me lately and that comes immediately into my mind because of this fact is Marian Coman.” (The Dark Wolf Fantasy Review)

Product Details

• File Size: 153 KB
• Print Length: 23 pages
• Publisher: Marian Coman; 1 edition (August 9, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005GQW132
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #741,237 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Romanian Invasion? November 9, 2011

By Wag The Fox

Format:Kindle Edition

Over the last five years or so, my reading habits have opened up to include authors from beyond Canada, the U.S., and Britain. The latest international offering comes from Romania. Marian Coman's short fiction has apparently been heralded over there a fair bit, but this self-published collection marks the first English translation.

Fingers is a collection of four short stories made available on the cheap via the Kindle Store. The title story "Fingers" has a wonderfully haunting aspect to its look at childhood in a Communist country, and the young lad's apparent wart on one of his fingers, which he's named Alfonso. Marian offers up the bland surroundings of the boy's life, which I thought were beautifully typified by his bombarding local kids from his bedroom window to the snowy grounds below with oranges. A great scene that is well worth reading.

The next story, "The Bathroom Door," is a bit of a horror story. Thankfully, however, it's not the kind of obvious horror story some might expect from the title. This one deals with a son's torment in the wake of his father's death and mother's insanity. Some pretty grim stuff, but told in such a way that gave it a poetic feel.

"Unwired" could fit into the sci-fi category, though it too had its dark elements. A boy on an island who feels separated from his peers on account of lacking something the others have. Frankly, I wouldn't too keen on having an extra "hole", but that's just me.

"Between Walls" was probably my least favorite among the four, but still a good read, which seemed to offer a new twist on an old piece of Romanian folklore. I'm not exactly read up on folklore outside my own country, so I'd probably have to hit Google or Wikipedia to get a better appreciation for this story.

All in all, it's an impressive sampling that shows Marian Coman deserves to find an English audience. My personal preferences toward each story diminished as I read each one, but that is something due simply to story placement. If you're looking to give an international voice a chance, here's one to consider.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fingers and other fantastic stories January 31, 2013

By Rose

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Beautiful. One of the greatest books you will ever read. The stories stretch your mind to untold of places. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic world behind the Communist blocks April 13, 2012

By Madalina Glavan

Format:Kindle Edition

Reading Marian Coman is like travelling, travelling back in time to your own childhood. It will trigger your memories, it will send you back to a world of fantasy, a world that you forgot it was inside you. But, the children in Marian Coman's stories live a twisted fantasy, a fantasy where the standard rules of a happy childhood are broken. Instead of a safe playground imagine a darkened space between grey communist blocks. Imagine concrete, concrete everywhere. Imagine dust, a lot of dust covering everything. And then imagine death. Because behind the greys blocks children misteriously die. However, in spite of all that concrete, of all that dust, of all the greyness, oranges get to be thrown out of the window for all those children that snow fight. "Juicy, ripe and sweet" oranges.
A scene from "Fingers" where the child-narator throws oranges out of the balcony is probably one of the best part in Marian Coman's stories, because it emphasizes the way children lived the Communist period. About Communism people wrote hundreds of novels, shared hundreds of experiences. However, there is not so much told about how children lived, how children felt, how children lived as children in the first place. Children did not know about the lack of freedom of speech, about the death of those against the Party, but they knew that there were no oranges or chocolate, or not even electricity. "Some of them, the little ones, didn't even know what such a fruit looked like." This sentence seems to me to sumarize what Communism meant for those little children playing behind the blocks.
Even though Marian Coman's stories advertise themseleves as fantastic, they are more than that, they show the broken generation of children of the Communism period.

More About the Author

Marian Coman was born in Mangalia, Romania, in 1977. He is editor-in-chief at the Obiectiv-Vocea Brăilei newspaper. In 2006 he received the Encouragement Award at the European SF Convention. He has published the volumes: Nopţi albe, zile negre (2005), Testamentul de ciocolată (2007), Teoria flegmei. Apel la mitocănie (2008, publicistics).
For the first time Marian Coman's fiction is available in English