Hey guys, here’s a quick review of a book I wanted to share with you. It’s called Stories About Things and I’ll tell you, the title does not lie!
AUTHOR TALK
Stories About Things (not an affiliate link) is a book written by a woman I “met” in my usual online travels named Aelius Blythe.
Before I actually get to the book itself I just wanted to say something about why I decided to read and review this book.
As we all know, I’m a bittorrent junkie, and I first became aware of Aelius from seeing her comment during my everyday readings of one of my favorite blogs, TorrentFreak.com. As you might imagine from the nature of the blog, many commenters do so anonymously, or at least using some sort of screen name.
She was one of the few who actually showed her real name and face, not to mention a link to where you can find out more about her. I’ve never commented on Torrentfreak myself but when I’ve commented on other torrent sites you certainly didn’t see my familiar cartoon avatar, that’s for sure.
Then I added Falkvinge.net to my regular reading list. For those who don’t know, Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the world’s first “Pirate Party”, and he talks a lot about freedom of information and the lack thereof. Don’t go by there unless you’re ready to really think. He brings up many issues that don’t have easy answers so be ready when you drop in.
Anyway, I saw her posting over there, too and I decided to click her link. As it turned out I ended up at her blog Cheapassfiction.com, and from there I saw she was in the middle of a battle about piracy with some other authors. It escalated until some guy said he wanted to bash her head in, and I thought to myself HOLY SHIT…I gotta read whatever she’s writing!
Well, suffice it to say that Aelius is an unrepentant pirate who does not care for copyright. As I was reading some of her thoughts on the matter, I was like:
“This chick is NUTS.”
then
“But I guess I kinda can see it…”
then
“Wait, this is starting to make sense…if she’s nuts, then I’M nuts!”
then
“Yeah, Goddamn right! Fight the power!”
And check this out, she puts her money where her mouth is. If you decide to pick up the book, this is what you’ll see on the front page:
Public Domain
(Creative Commons CC0)
Please respect the hard work of this author by copying, sharing, modifying, or otherwise using this work, wherever and however possible.
No Rights Reserved.
So how about that, huh? Hey, maybe I’ll go ahead and tell you about the actual book, now…
STORIES ABOUT THINGS
As the name implies, this is a book of short stories, which is one of my favorite types of reads.
I’ll borrow a bit from my ‘Stories’ Amazon review here.
The book is divided in half, with some stories set right here in our every day world, and other stories that contain that element of fantasy or the fantastic.
The only thing wrong with short stories is when they’re good, it sucks even more because they’re over quicker. The tone of the stories is definitely what I’d consider to be “dark”, though outright violence and gore is not something you’ll have to worry about.
I read through the book in one evening, even though I didn’t mean to, but once you get started it’s pretty easy to just move from one story right into the next.
I actually read it on my phone, using the Kindle app, although I’m not sure if she has it on sale on the iBookstore or elsewhere.
To me, it was a perfect quick read that you can break up into even smaller chunks if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t have much free time.
The final word is that I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who reads fiction, and the price is definitely right, so she wasn’t kidding when she named her blog Cheapass Fiction.
THE WRAP UP
You know, I had fun writing this up. I hadn’t done a real review since I did the article on one of my favorite fantasy stories by Lloyd Alexander, so I think you can expect to see more reviews from me, although it may not be of current work like Stories About Things.
So in conclusion, I didn’t want to say too much more about the stories because I don’t want to spoil anything for you guys. There’s some good stuff in there so I hope you’ll give it a shot, or check out even more from Aelius on her blog, too.
If you decided to pick it up make sure to drop me a line or a comment to let me know what you thought about it, I’d love to hear it.
See you guys next time!
I had been searching for my next read since I’ve finished my last one when I found your post, but I couldn’t tell that I felt assured by your review… unfortunately, I haven’t got enough time to read all the books, I have to select and choose the best ones, so I think I have to search for more…
Hi Vilmi, I actually meant for this to be a glowing review, but maybe it wasn’t as clear as I hoped.
Anyway I definitely would recommend it and I hope you give it a shot!
The author is really generous to be putting this work in the public domain. Thanks for this review JG
You’re welcome Steven! And yes Aelius stands behind her words, I think it’s pretty darn generous myself.
A sad cup full of dust was born to be shattered on the floor.. And still to smell like grandmother’s tea..
The first story is .. intriguing! It’s written simple. But on reading it I start thinking there was a hidden sense in it, wasn’t it?))
Hey Ted, yeah it was a real page turner for me (or page-swiper since I actually read it on my phone).
Once I started reading I finished it in one sitting, so it had to be good. Thanks for checking it out!