Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Inject Some Fun Into Your Dark Fantasy Reading, December 8, 2011
This review is from: The New Death and others (Kindle Edition)
If you like your short stories cynical and twisted, or your fairy tales fractured, then this is a perfect coffee table book full of cynical and twisted tales, interspersed with some very good dark poetry. Mr Hutchings left a message on my blog asking if I would read and review his book. I had put the call out to `independent authors' in an earlier post for my 2012 Reading List, but I think this was a random request and I'm so pleased to have been asked as this little book really tickled my sense of humour and touched those dark chords that draw me to unsettling and unusual fiction. I have never read a book quite like this, it has no particular order, being a total mix of work which makes it perfect for picking up and selecting a page at random. I didn't like some of the stories, but I did appreciate most of them, and the poetry I thought was wonderful. An obvious cat lover, there are several references to cats throughout, such as the disturbing How the Isle of Cats Got Its Name and the gorgeous little poem My Cat is Not Like Other Cats, which all of us cat lovers can definitely identify with! In The Death of the Artist it is revealed that all writers and artists have cats, a fact which takes on a sinister significance; and now I fully understand that when my Tenshi is staring intently at nothing she is actually enhancing her mental powers!! Of all the short stories I really liked the atmospheric The Scholar and the Moon which has less of the cynicism that prevails in most of the other work, and the nightmarish The Dragon Festival. The poetry, as I have said, is very good with some of it being based on actually stories by Lovecraft, Dunsany and an author I have only just recently `discovered' - Clark Ashton Smith. Yes, some of the stories are corny or just plain silly, but others have a touch of sheer brilliance to them. If you tend to get bogged down with some heavy reading, which I do on occasion, this is a breath of fresh air. I didn't want to put it down, and looked forward to the twisted endings and the clever play on words and ideas. Even the corny stories got a giggle as well as a groan out of me.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
a smorgasbord of myths, fables, parodies and puns, October 12, 2011
This review is from: The New Death and others (Kindle Edition)
The New Death and others is an interesting collection of short stories and poems. As with any collection of stories, I liked some of them, hated a few and others were just OK for me. Two memorable ones were "How the Isle of Cats Got Its Name" and "Weary Love" James Hutchings has an active imagination. This body of work is a smorgasbord of myths, fables, parodies and puns. There were political and religious views woven into a lot of the work. Some racial and ethnic profiling may upset the unsuspecting reader. In all honesty, a lot of the intended humor missed its mark with me. I would have liked to have seen an overall theme to this novel. When I purchase a collection of works, it is usually because the stories or poems all share a common theme that interests me. While some of the tales had a good story line, I felt cheated. They weren't developed enough and felt rushed. I would have preferred a longer story with more details. Hutchings's fantasy stories show promise. This collection is available as an eBook .
I want to thank author James Hutchings for providing me with a copy of his eBook in exchange for my unbiased review.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unusual, Fascinating Book, February 22, 2012
This review is from: The New Death and others (Kindle Edition)
The New Death and Others
By James Hutchings Let me start by saying that I loved this book, but it's hard to describe exactly what it is because it doesn't really fit neatly into your standard fiction genres. But please, don't let that dissuade you from checking it out. I'm mortally afraid that I'll turn potential readers off by reviewing it and my poor attempts at trying to describe exactly what it is. But imagine, if you will, that Saki (H. H. Munro) didn't die in WWI and decided to rewrite Ovid's Metamorphosis and a few Lovecraftian short stories. Many of the stories and poems in this collection had Saki's sly, often acerbic and dark, wit and a definite mythological/phantasmagorical slant. The book is a fascinating collection of short stories, poems, and tiny vignettes, each small fantasy ending with a Saki-esque twist. There is, quite literally, something for everyone, as long as you have a rather mordant and morbid sense of humor. The author describes it as dark fantasy and it is that. There is definitely a Greek myth feeing to the stories, but they tend to be much more amusing that the typical myths. And it isn't all fantasy. Or rather, I guess it is, but my favorite story in the collection was The Adventure of the Murdered Philanthropist that literally had me laughing out loud. I was reading it in bed and my husband thought I had lost my mind. When I picked up the book the next night to continue, he looked at me, sighed, and said, "You're not reading that again, are you?" I was clearly disturbing his fifth reading of one of his books on the Civil War. Or else he was aggravated that he wasn't having as much fun reading his book as I was reading this one. Get over it. Anyway, The Adventure of the Murdered Philanthropist was a new Sherlock Holmes-type story, except a lot more fun, complete with murder and a brilliant consulting detective. Just to give you a taste, there is one point in the story where one of the characters is described as the sort who makes large contributions to the RSPCA. Then there was a footnote defining the RSPCA as The Royal Society for the Practice of Cruelty to Atheists. That footnote induced one of the moments that disturbed my husband so much: I broke out laughing. Okay, maybe you had to be there, though I'm glad you weren't because our bed isn't quite that large. So there were stories like The Adventure of the Murdered Philanthropist (I would have bought the book just to get that story--it was that good) which continues the Sherlock Holmes tradition; Under the Pyramids, based on an H.P. Lovecraft story; The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune, based on a story by Robert E. Howard; The Garden of Adompha, based on a story by Clark Ashton Smith; and many, many others.
As I said, there is quite literally, something for everyone who has a sense of humor. It is difficult to convey just how much I enjoyed the various stories. I'm not much for poetry, but I did enjoy a few pieces just because of the wry humor. I loved this book. I just wish I could convey a better feel for this collection. If you enjoyed stories like Saki's The Open Door or The Great God Pan, then you will adore The New Death and Others. I hope I've convinced you to give it a try. Just don't read it in a setting where they're likely to call the men with the long-sleeved, white jackets if you start laughing insanely in public. Happy Reading!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
