The New Death and others [Kindle Edition]

James Hutchings (Author)

Book Description

Death gets a roommate...

An electronic Pope faces a difficult theological question...

A wicked vizier makes a terrible bargain...

44 stories. 19 poems. No sparkly vampires. There's a thin line between genius and insanity, and James Hutchings has just crossed it - but from which direction?

Product Details

• File Size: 335 KB
• Print Length: 158 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: James Hutchings (September 27, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005Q8Q8DY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #506,342 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Read the "look inside"; if you like, buy immediately. Otherwise... August 14, 2012

By Steven Saus

Format:Kindle Edition

The book is a collection of flash fiction - short-shorts that usually clock in under a thousand words. I was intrigued by the gorgeous cover, and as someone who does a lot of work in flash fiction and drabbles myself, I was really open to the idea of the book.

I really, really wanted to like this book. The ideas are clever. There's obviously a lot of thought put into each of these short tales. But there was something about the execution that left me admiring the effort, but ultimately cold.

Many of the stories are told in a kind of mythic, distant third person narrative voice, which tends to rub me the wrong way. For example, The God of the Poor - the first flash fiction in the collection.

The concept is wry, satirical, and quite astute. I love the idea. But there's something about the execution that just didn't gel for me. However, I showed it to a friend of mine, who didn't share my reaction - they just liked it.

So go read a bit of the preview. If you enjoy the preview, you will love the rest of the book. If you don't, you will not love the rest of the book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars a smorgasbord of myths, fables, parodies and puns October 12, 2011

By Kimba88

Format: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.

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

By Maxine Cox

Format: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.