Customer Reviews

The New Death and others

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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.

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.

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!

Want a book entirely different than the latest trends? The New Death is exactly that.

Small stories and poems regarding various things are part of the book. There are 2 paragraph stories to 2-3 pages stories. There is not a skeleton on the stories subject. They just appear. But most importantly the book is fun, ironic and sarcastic. From serious matters like death, to things we do every day, like our relationship with our phones, you can say there are stories for everything. There are also poems based on famous books or what about a poem on a cat?

As you see, the book is just so different than anything else. My favorites ones were the small stories (which weren't more than one page). They were really fast, funny and thoughtful (My favorite one was "The End". I still laugh when i think of it). Then were some poems and then the stories. The stories with the gods(Death, Love, War,etc) were so great and so true!! My reactions to most of the book were like "hahahaa" and then "ohh...so true though..clever".

I won't say i liked all of the stories or poems, but definitely had an entertaining evening. And the book cost only $0.99, so why not? As for Mr. James Hutchings...i think he has gone a little over the insanity line :p

I was given an advance copy of this book, but I must say, I would have been more than willing to pay for it. I'll give you the bottom line first, in case you're the type to only read the first couple sentences of a review:

Some of the stories are better than others. A few are a bit derivative and many are very topical (*almost* to the point of being preachy), but for the most part, they were a lot of fun. Mr. Hutchings is quite fond of puns and inside-type jokes, which can be old if you don't like play on words (which I do) or are not familiar with what he is referencing (which, luckily, I was). He spins many idioms on their heads and I think what I enjoyed most was his strong use of voice and language. I was surprised by the number of poems in the work as I do not see many people who do both prose and poetry these days. I particularly enjoyed the poems based on works by HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Howard (so if nothing else, at least I know that Mr. Hutchings and I would have similar tastes). I think the author provided a good mix of humor and tragedy (frequently in the same story), and all together, this is a collection of both heavy thoughts and light ditties. My absolute favorite story was 'The Adventure of the Murdered Philanthropist,' which was not only puntastic but the kind of story I'd love to see made into a little animated short. Some of the ideas and topics are repeated, such as love (or the frustrated search thererof), fame, the poor, the misuse of power, and theology, but while these are clearly things the author considers frequently, it never reached the 'beat the dead horse' level. I can't say this collection is for everyone, but as independent titles go, I must say this has been one of my favorites.

When the author asked me to review The New Death and Others I was quite chuffed. I'm not normally one to review books but I thought it was a great time to start. The genre of this book isn't really what I would seek out to read, so it was going to be out of my normal comfort zone.

The New Death and Others is a collection of short stories, very short stories and poetry. The subject of these tales is quite dark at times. I have to say that some of them left me a little cold - meaning that I read them and at the end my thoughts were 'What was all that about?'. But on the other hand many of them showed me a completely different way of looking at things. I liked the clever way that Hutchings uses Death, Destiny, Fame and many others as characters - certainly a different spin.

The author has a talent to look at everyday things and present them in a completely original way - and as you read - if you look behind the words you can pick up the hidden messages in the stories.

I see these stories as a very original way of reflecting on the norms of society. This can provoke the reader into personal contemplation about ourselves and how we live.

My plan for just reading "a story or two" went right out of the window when I became engrossed in reading the tales in this book. I'm a big fan of fantasy in general, and enjoyed the twists in the tales, as well as the humour injected in to parts of them. I also enjoyed the couple of old tales that were given new life by being brought in to the 21st century. I would recommend this collection of stories to anyone who asked me my opinion, and hope to see more in the future.

Umm, okay. I got this book - a collection of short stories and poems - from the author in return for an honest review. I hope he doesn't change his mind when he reads what I have to say about his work. LOL
Anyway, just a side note here - I didn't read the poems. Sorry, but I'm not a poetry person.

Let me start off by saying that the stories are all dark humor, dark fantasy, dead on sarcastic and super thought provoking. The author addresses very important issues in each story, though they are so well masked, that if you don't use your brains, you'd be left gaping at the page wondering "what the hell did I just read?"

Each story is thought provoking, deep on a shallow level and so out there that it's really brilliant. They're all written in a creative, sarcastic and totally new way that made me laugh hysterically.

I'VE NEVER READ ANYTHING LIKE IT!!!
I can categorize it either as insanely mad or totally brilliant, and nothing in between. And I can definitely say that this isn't a book for just a random read. It's light and heavy at the same time; pointless and intrusive; moralistic in a very odd kind of way. I recommend it to people who like to have a good laugh when they encounter the truth revealed in the most bizarre ways. Like through talking cats or the like.

I really liked the following stories (though the list isn't full, since I didn't record the titles after the 50% threshold):
*The end
*Everlasting fire
*Rumpelstiltskin
*The New Death
*The New God

Some of the most quirky short stories and poems you will ever read. Just to name a few; How The Isle of Cats Got It's Name, The Prince of the Howling Forest, The Bird and The Two Trees. Do yourself a favor and read this book. You will love it, I did. I won this book from LibraryThing.

This book was hilarious. James Hutchings has taken the simplest things and turned them into something fantastic! This book is perfect for those days when you have 5 minutes spare, you can quickly grab it and read one of the short stories or poems. I am not a huge fan of short stories, but I will be recommending this book to all readers, and people who just love to have a laugh!