The Ex by Alafair Burke
Defence lawyer Olivia Randall is asked to defend her former fiancé Jack who has been arrested for a gun rampage. Jack insists he is being framed and as Olivia strongly disputes the evidence; existential concerns and doubt build. Does Olivia hold Jack in a remote bubble of adulation? Is all the evidence just a grim coincidence? Or is Jack a darker, meaner more violent person than Olivia will admit?
This was good with an ending of surreal disorientation. This is a tale of ethical standards, deep fear, concern, admiration, exasperation, debauchery, sexual vigour, calculated decision making, ever more lurid theories and a real stark ending.
Best Lines:
“Who know where the darkness took him?”
“Those thoughts become a training ground.”
“Movers are all ex-felons.”
“I was bound to pursue his interests as he defined them.”
~
The Secret Prophecies of Nostradamus edited by Cynthia Sternau and Martin H. Greenberg, part 1
A 1995 DAW anthology that disappoints like ‘Dinosaur Fantastic’ and ‘Alien Pregnant by Elvis’.
To The Reader
An introduction that does not set-up a working situation for the book.
Quatrain One: The Book Of Sarah
An old woman is subjected to untoward behaviour from weirdoes. This has no sheer oddness just various nefarious purposes. This was phenomenally stupid.
Not The German Mountains
An unsupportable mess.
Best Line:
“The web of social-driven myth.”
Radical Chick
A tale of a society that prizes dumbness. This has no tough unvarnished edge and doesn’t seem actually required by the theme of this anthology.
S.T.O.P-N.O.S
A sequel to a story in ‘Miskatonic University’. This is a dated tale of bemused onlookers as prophecy comes true.
Last Of The Red-Lead Fleet
A murky sludge tale of a submarine and people who drape themselves in the mantle of heroic suffering.
Buckeye Jim In Egypt
Nothing in this bears any sense of reality. This was disappointingly bog standard.
Twenty Years Later, By Separation Peak
20 yeas ago a group of friends murdered the POTUS for what they assumed was reasons of clarity and wisdom. The logical consequences follow. This was good.