Review: The New Death and Others by James Hutchings

review.pngJames Hutchings sent me an email, asking me to review his book The New Death and others, and I gladly accepted.

The book is a collection of flash fiction – short-shorts that usually clock in under a thousand words. I was intrigued by the gorgeous cover, and as someone who does a lot of work in flash fiction and drabbles myself, I was really open to the idea of the book.

I really, really wanted to like this book. The ideas are clever. There’s obviously a lot of thought put into each of these short tales. But there was something about the execution that left me admiring the effort, but ultimately cold.

Many of the stories are told in a kind of mythic, distant third person narrative voice, which tends to rub me the wrong way. For example, The God of the Poor – the first flash fiction in the collection. (You can read it using the "Look Inside!" feature at Amazon.)

The concept is wry, satirical, and quite astute. I love the idea. But there’s something about the execution that just didn’t gel for me. However, I showed it to a friend of mine, who didn’t share my reaction – they just liked it.

So go read a bit of the preview. If you enjoy the preview, you will love the rest of the book. If you don’t, you will not love the rest of the book. And if you’re on the fence, hey, The New Death and others is only  99 cents. Why not?