This was a solid collection of stories. The ideas were great, and I like his prose. There were a couple stories in there that I found really boring, but I just skipped them and the rest were really compelling! Nice little tastes of great sci fi concepts. ( )

Stories of history and its telling, both "real" and imagined, presented in narrative forms reflective of diverse cultures. Fiction, fantasy and science fiction, all compelling. ( )

Rating:

The Publisher Says: keluarga: to move to a new village
lunak: to search for something without finding it
mencintai: to love for the last time

Meet a guilt-ridden nurse who atones for her sins by joining her zombified patients in exile; a lone soldier standing guard on a desolate Arctic island against an invasion that may be all in his mind; a folksinger who tries to unionize Hell; and a private eye who only takes your case after you die. Visit a resettlement centre for refugees from ancient Rome; a lost country recreated by its last citizen on the Internet; and a restaurant where the owner’s ghost lingers for one final party. Discover the inflationary effects of a dragon’s hoard, the secret connection between Mark Twain and Frankenstein, and the magic power of blackberry jam—all in this debut collection of strange, funny, and bittersweet tales by acclaimed writer Matthew Johnson.

My Review: The UK Book-A-Day meme, a book a day for August 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten SF-book reviews. Today's prompt, the third in the meme, is an excellent collection of short stories.

Matthew Johnson's collection is assured and sublimely well-written. His ideas are very well matched to his genres, and his emotional barometer is calibrated beautifully to the story medium.

5 stars
"Irregular Verbs" tells the story of grief. When your closest companion dies, a language is lost. There are things you can never, ever say aloud again. I don't know how he knows this, but he does.

4.5 stars
"Another Country" presents the alienation of dislocation in a different way than we're accustomed to. Space and time require things of us, things we don't often think about. This is what happens when those things are lost.
"Public Safety" is a thing I've dreamt of for years, an alternative history story wherein the French Republic of 1792 never fell. I **loved** this tale of Reason gone mad. Half-star off for copy-editing infelicities. They worked my nerve hard. Pay special attention to the date of the story's action. Heh.

4 stars
"What You Couldn't Leave Behind" is set in Bardo City, features a skinny restaurateur named The Jackal, and concerns a recently dead man's murder. It's an Egypto-Buddhist Afterlife Noir, you see, complete with Sam Spade and a healthy admixture of Rick Blaine. There's The Femme Fatale, take your pick of Lauren Bacall or Ingrid Bergman, there's the Maltese Falcon/Canopic jars, there's the quest to reach Nirvana(ish) space with a heart as light as a feather. Like all stories here, it's best savored on multiple levels.

3.5 stars
"Beyond the Fields You Know" turns the Narnia/Peter Pan mythos into the same blender carafe as Alice and Beatrix Potter are lying in and sets the speed to frappé. From the screaming foam of your treasured childhood reads emerges a dark and dangerous war fought for unknown reasons by unknowable strangers, all served and supported by Lost Boys who're supervised by the White Rabbit and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's evil twins. Fun, but slight.

3 stars
"When We Have Time" did nothing for me to speak of; it has the virtue of brevity and makes a sneaky point about the role of money in modern life. Still, I've read it before and in more depth.


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An intriguing, albeit uneven, mix of short stories with imaginative settings. ( )