Anatomy of a Review
Reviews are organized first by author, then by year of publication, and lastly by name. I will admit that this is more than a little idiosyncratic. Following this is a link, the word count, a rating out of five stars, a sentence-length premise, and, finally an archival link to the story via the Wayback Machine. || Following the double vertical bars is a capsule review of no more than one hundred words (or two hundred and fifty, in the case of novels). || If I have additional thoughts, whether directly related or only tangetial to the story, then I'll post a link after another pair of vertical bars. Tags: I'll admit that these don't function like conventional tags, but I hope to have a lot of stories on this page someday, and the the tags will help you sift through them, if you use CTRL+F.
Short Stories
Assuwatar. (2020) “Free.” AO3. 4,300 words. ★★★☆☆ Sword duel in the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean, with mild post-apocalyptic themes owing to the recent Bronze Age Collapse. Wayback here. || Writing is fine but unpolished. Duel is passable, and a good illustration of the importance of stakes in combat scenes, but could stand revision. Meeting between main characters worthwhile. Motif of silence could have elevated story to four stars — it is almost very good — but feels haphazard; “silence speaks” doesn’t speak to me. The story describes hekwetai as though they’re a mystery to be unveiled, which never pays off; maybe assumes the reader already knows what hekwetai are (palace agents who operate abroad, generally as traders). || Wordpress post here, on the topic of the Bronze Age collapse. Tags: aromantic characters, asexual characters, fight scene, historical fiction, post-apocalyptic.
Novels
Tidhar, Lavie. (2014) A Man Lies Dreaming. Internet Archive. ★★★☆☆ 261 pages (pb). It is Britain, 1939, and the former demagogue Adolf Hitler is nothing more than a political refugee and private eye; and in another time and place a man lies dreaming, of a world where Germany fell to Communism in 1933. || The book’s primary narrator is Hitler, and I hate this, and probably that was intentional, and yet I cannot overstate just how much I hate this. Excellent work of noir crime fiction, checks all the boxes, and not far off from OKD’s “Man in the High Castle.” Characters less flat than they are archetypal, though one — the “watcher in the dark” — is rather a letdown after all the build-up, and of course Adolf Hitler, P.I. stretches the imagination, though peculiar enough to suspend disbelief. Well-flavored prose, befitting noir. This alternate London is believable, well-detailed. But all this is hobbled by having to spend ninety-percent of my time with Adolf Hitler; I preferred even “Planet Auschwitz,” as one of the prisoners calls it. The brief camp scenes were dreadful, but at least their viewpoint character wasn’t literally Hitler. My reaction would doubtless be different if we viewed him only from the outside, lacking a front-row seat to every noxious thought that crosses his mind. The single bright spot is an unexpected, and unexpectedly touching, encounter with Leni Reifenstahl, former Nazi actress and present Hollywood starlet, who is perhaps the one person genuinely happy to see him, and with no ulterior motive. || Tags: alternate history (1930s), detective, mystery, noir, postmodern, pulp