The thing with Michael Botur's short story collection HELL OF A THING is that there is going to be something in here for all readers who like a bit of dark, unrelenting, beat you round the head and shoulders styled fiction.

There's sixteen stories in this collection, described in the blurb:

In Hell of a Thing, a cowardly father seeks a more exciting son; two lovers on a posh date dine on self-delusion; and an author turns his back on his past—until the past demands violent closure. We meet artistic terrorists, renegade daughters, an Uber driver from Waziristan, and a crew of casino kids up past their bedtime—everything with a distinctive Kiwi flavor that lends a counter-clockwise swirl to otherwise familiar settings.

Counter-clockwise, self-delusional, violent, all added up to a very unusual, sometimes decidedly discomforting collection, although I will confess to a particular favourite being artistic terrorists:

Looking through the throng at her BFF, Lotus can tell Andi is pissed. Andi – half a head taller than most of the plebs here – is moving like a Terminator, nudging people aside with her big arms. Andi wants the night over. Andi wants the revolution to kick off.

Maybe she'll end up heading to the revolution in an Uber driven by the guy from The Flemish Bond:

We finally screech into a space and point north and I relax a fraction and get a chance to study my driver: Hawaiian shirt, gelled black hair, messy black goatee, Jesus on the dash, rasta air freshener hanging from the rearview in the shape of a weed leaf. He’s my age, more or less. His biceps are interesting. Bit of muscle on him.

Reeking of authenticity, tough as nails, littered with all the obscenities you're going to hear where the hard, would-be-hard, and hangers on congregate, there's something familiar, and shocking about the way that Botur puts these stories together. Set firmly in New Zealand, these would also translate to just about anywhere that there's societal tension - the have's and have not's, indigenous and non-indigenous, righteous and terminally bored, aspirationals and couldn't give a ... types. The writing style is a combination of observational and reportage, with the only slack given to the reader the occasional touches of humour that come like a lightening bolt from some very dark storm clouds.

Disconcertingly compulsive reading, I will confess to a slow troll through this collection and a return to a few to reconsider based on something further down in the collection. Botur says this about his short story collections:

Michael Botur is the author of four acclaimed short story collections and one collection which hardly anybody read. He has published creative writing in most of New Zealand’s literary journals and has won various prizes for short stories and poems; likewise, he has published journalism in most major newspapers and magazines in that country. He lives in Whangarei with his two kids.

A distinctive voice, HELL OF A THING could be just the something very different readers are looking for, with the proviso that we're talking dark and unrelenting, from a fascinating, and very exciting writer.… (más)

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austcrimefiction | Jan 17, 2023 |

Moneyland (Lockdownland Book 1) por Michael Botur

Greed and the cruelty of human nature mixes with emotions, survival, and the fragile balance called friendship to create a gripping read.

Eden just wants to have an exciting time during her last years of high school and party with her friends...and avoid the losers. When a chance to win a million dollars each through a contest among groups at schools hits, she's on board to apply, and when the group at her school wins, she doesn't even have a chance to digest the moment before she's shipped off to the area, where she's to live for a year in order to maintain her million bucks. It should be a piece of cake, but after one load of food and water, the participants are on their own...something she didn't know. Soon, it becomes clear that this isn't going to be the vacation her and her friends dreamed about, but rather, a survival game, and everyone has their eye on increasing their own pot of cash by taking from the others. Plus, there's one more rule Eden wasn't aware of before she agreed to enter the contest; there's only one exit before the end of the year, and that is death.

Hunger Games kind of is a nod in this direction, but unlike that read, this one deals with the basic desire of greed, betrayal, and selfishness. There doesn't have to be one winner; all could win. It makes the story cut like a sharp knife at humanity and illustrates the disgusting mess of selfish desires inside. The tale is raw, hits quite a few themes, and leaves no one unscarred. Add brutal deaths...not overly gory...with a lack of compassion, and it's not a light read.

Eden is hard to like, especially in the beginning, and she's an unusual heroine in that she keeps many of her sharp corners until the very end. Her view of others versus herself walks as thin a line as those around her, and yet, she does gain enough insight and understanding to make her not impossible to root for. As the first book in the series, this is building up an interesting character arc, which promises to carry an unique twist throughout the series.

Fans of gritty reads, which expose the worst side of humanity and bring tons of food for thought, will enjoy this one. The pacing is fast, keeping every flip of the page engaging and never lets up, even at the end. I did enjoy this one quite a bit and will be looking forward to grabbing up book two.
I received a complimentary copy and was surprised how grabbing this tale is.… (más)

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tdrecker | Aug 27, 2022 |

Crimechurch por Michael Botur

A brutal novel full of horrible people doing horrible things, leaving themselves no obvious path forward or out, CRIMECHURCH isn't going to be to everyone's taste. So dark, so populated by downtrodden, desperate people I'm not even sure you could call this noir - there's something breathtaking, relentless, unapologetic about the pace here that kind of doesn't feel noirish - it just, well, feels desperate.

The title is obviously a reference to Christchurch, and it's more than a bit startling for a non-New Zealand reader to think that a city renowned for its beauty (and natural hazards) has a dark, violent, drug-addled, psychopathic side to it - which is quite possibly very naive on the part of this reader. There is, although, an ending to this novel that will undoubtedly surprise readers who are finding themselves dragged down to a level that they aren't comfortable knowing exists. Especially as everything leading up to the ending is so imbued with hopelessness, and violence - there's buckets of graphic, gut-wrenching violence here that read with such believable authority that this reader was tempted to lock all the doors and never venture out the front gate again - after all if this stuff is going on in Christchurch....

Surprisingly, there are moment of humour dotted through the hopelessness, and there is a sense of community forming - not a good one sure, but there is something going on here, and there is that ending that doesn't quite come out of left field if you're really paying attention, that didn't work, and then, with even more reflection, made perfect sense.

CRIMECHURCH isn't comfort reading, and it's certainly not easy reading, combining viewpoints from the awful, to just sad, and then there's those tiny touches of hope. It's a wild wild wild ride, and this reader found it utterly fascinating despite the confrontation, brutality, and dysfunction.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/crimechurch-michael-botur… (más)

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austcrimefiction | Nov 11, 2021 |