book review: Unthology No.2 by various writers

Short story collections by a variety of writers should always provide a patchwork of reading experiences with the different voices and styles. Good collections manage to deliver that as well as provide some overall takeaway theme for the reader and here it is very much about encouraging the development of creative talent.

There are thirteen stories in this collection and some of the names are familiar, particularly Nick Sweeney who has had a book reviewed on this bvlog before. The idea of taking up-and-coming writers and providing them with a place to show off their wares is an admirable one and there are certainly a few stories here that will be referred back to in future years as the early days of solid literary careers.

In terms of the most memorable it is perhaps unfair to pick out a few among the thirteen but I particularly liked Differences in Lifts by Lander Hawes, The Swan King by Ashley Stokes, The Poets of Radial City by Paul A. Green and Nine Hundred and Ninety Something by Nick Sweeney.

Starting with the Sweeney first what this writer gives you is a great sense of location. Taking you to locations in Eastern Europe and Turkey is something that was a feature of Laikonik Express and he does it again here. A clever story about a group of criminals preying on unsuspecting tourists comes with a twist that will deliver a smile. But it is the way he describes another world that will stay with you.

Talking of different worlds the landscape described by Paul A. Green is one where poetry is seen as a way of underming authority and as the poets stage one great protest against the state the status quo is challenging in a way that perhaps you would not expect from the poetic form. But this is a different reality and one convincingly delivered.

There were times that reality seemed all to familar with the coming of age and bogeyman story written by Ashley Stokes. The Swan King is a figure maligned and wrongly blamed. Part Rear Window in the way the main characters watch from their flat and part To Kill A Mockingbird in the way a relatively harmless odd figure is turned into some sort of bogeyman this gets under your skin. Secrets come back to haunt those looking for the killer of a student and the desire to be popular, liked and loved is one that doesn't just haunt the Swan King.

The other story that I have perhaps unfairly highlighted from a great collection is something with a futuristic feel from Lander Hawes. It's a world where work, careers and keeping on the straight and narrow dominate but when one man finds little support for his complaints about the lifts he demonstrates just how much a seemingly petty issue means to him. Strange and disturbing in the sense that although clearly not set in our time and space the corporate nonsense it describes is something we can all relate to.

Overall this is a great showcase for up and coming writers and it gives you everything a short story collection should. Great writing, different styles and a chance to be shocked, saddened and entertained.

book review: Laikonik Express by Nick Sweeney

There are several things going on here ranging from the finding yourself type tale, the I want to write something but what should I write story and a pure old fashioned love story. The fact that they are intertwined and done so with great humour and a brilliant sense of location makes this the interesting read it ends up being.

The central axis of the book is the friendship between English teacher Nolan Kennedy and his erratic friend Don Darius. They met in Istanbul, where the story starts with Kennedy drifting along struggling with his own writing but determined to get the work of his friend published. Darius has left a manuscript that Kennedy thinks is a work of genius and he sets off to track his friend down in Eastern Europe to convince him that it should be edited and published.

Darius turns out to be a friendly chap who has a love of vodka and a less than enthusiastic relationship with writing suffering from bouts of indifference and lack of confidence. Plus he is on a mission to find the woman he glimpsed on a journey and fell in love with. Tracking her down involves heading off on the Laikonik Express into the snow covered streets of Poland and into a world that is strange and fuzzy as the vodka numbs the senses but creates a platform to develop friendships.

Kennedy is living life through his hopes for his friend and by the conclusion of the love story it is his own tale of traveling and his own doomed relationship with a Chinese girl that seems not only to match that of Darius but to overtake it in terms of literary value. He just hasn't seen it yet in his idolization of his friend.

Love might not blossom like the movies but the chance for it to find a way drives the narrative and for a while gives both friends a sense of purpose. Once that has lifted the harder challenge of working out what to do with life emerges as something that Kennedy at least seems to be aware he must face.

The description of small Polish villages, out of the way bars and the rail network in Eastern Europe are all delivered expertly from someone who has clearly spent some time in that part of the world. The experience of writing and the challenge of finding a subject is also something you suspect that the author has wrestled with but with this coming of realisation story about love, friendship, booze and literature he has been able to deliver a narrative that draws you in and keeps you going.