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Quasi-review of Dimensions
Mar. 19th, 2007 08:43 amSome time ago, Robert Blevins gave a favorable video review of my novel The Mars Run. Thanks in part to that, his co-author, Goeff Nelder arranged for me to get a review copy of their short story collection Dimensions
I just finished reading the book, and found it overall quite enjoyable. The book is well-put together, with a small illustration for each of its 23 short stories. Like any collection of shorts, I like some stories more then others, but overall it was quite a readable book.
The first short story in the collection, Blevin’s Cruel and Unusual, was to me perhaps the weakest in the collection. Since Blevin liked my stuff, I do feel a bit ungrateful for saying that, but you "call them like you see them." Cruel and Unusual seemed to be a rift on the old “Twilight Zone” episode of a convict (in this case a mass murderer) marooned on a distant and hostile world. He spent over twenty years trying to get back to Earth, in the process becoming completely reformed, only to discover that he should have stayed where he was.
The strongest story, in my view, was Goeff Nelder’s Prime Meridian. Goeff is an Englishman, and his story is set in an English village. The protagonist, a schoolteacher named John Forrister, inherits his grandfather’s house. John finds the whole setup lacking – the only bright spot in his life is that his neighbor likes to wash her hair at the kitchen sink sans shirt. Things become more interesting when meteorites start piercing his house every day at 3:20 PM. The ending is both unexpected and cute.
Blevin’s story Hole Card is another short story, and quite solid. It turns out that the aliens at Roswell, NM were from the future – and the surviving pilot was human. Also of note is Blevin’s story A Smaller Step, which puts an alternate-history spin on the death of Yuri Gargarin. When I finished it, I had a case of goose bumps.
I just finished reading the book, and found it overall quite enjoyable. The book is well-put together, with a small illustration for each of its 23 short stories. Like any collection of shorts, I like some stories more then others, but overall it was quite a readable book.
The first short story in the collection, Blevin’s Cruel and Unusual, was to me perhaps the weakest in the collection. Since Blevin liked my stuff, I do feel a bit ungrateful for saying that, but you "call them like you see them." Cruel and Unusual seemed to be a rift on the old “Twilight Zone” episode of a convict (in this case a mass murderer) marooned on a distant and hostile world. He spent over twenty years trying to get back to Earth, in the process becoming completely reformed, only to discover that he should have stayed where he was.
The strongest story, in my view, was Goeff Nelder’s Prime Meridian. Goeff is an Englishman, and his story is set in an English village. The protagonist, a schoolteacher named John Forrister, inherits his grandfather’s house. John finds the whole setup lacking – the only bright spot in his life is that his neighbor likes to wash her hair at the kitchen sink sans shirt. Things become more interesting when meteorites start piercing his house every day at 3:20 PM. The ending is both unexpected and cute.
Blevin’s story Hole Card is another short story, and quite solid. It turns out that the aliens at Roswell, NM were from the future – and the surviving pilot was human. Also of note is Blevin’s story A Smaller Step, which puts an alternate-history spin on the death of Yuri Gargarin. When I finished it, I had a case of goose bumps.
