Randy's style is intense, his plotting
brilliant...terrific writing style. Each of his stories a gem - and
each was very different. -- Katy Sozaeva
It’s hard (and sad) to realize that three years have passed since
I was among the recipients of a group email that Katy Sazaeva sent informing us
that her prognosis was for weeks or months left in her fight with cancer.
Katy was an ardent supporter of my fiction and also edited
several pieces.
She reviewed almost all of my works and I thought I’d
reprint those reviews here.
September
2, 2011
I
expected a few things when I started reading this book. I expected to maybe be
amused by a satirical take on the Fundamentalists that are doing their utmost
to take over this country - sadly, the concept is difficult to make amusing,
because the idea of Fundamentalists taking over this country and turning it
into an Evangelical theocracy is absolutely terrifying to anyone who wants to
live in love and Light. I expected to be outraged by the excesses of
Fundamentalist leaders who grow fat and rich off the tithing of their flock,
while the common people live in poverty and squalor. I expected to be terrified
by the idea of an Evangelical theocracy in general. What I did not expect was
to be profoundly moved. I did not expect the overwhelming desire to make this
book required reading for everyone. I did not expect goose bumps or a profound
feeling of "rightness" to come over me while I read this book. I did
not expect to want to take to the streets to preach the word of Bobby - to
propose that the world would be a better place if we all became ... Bobbites.
You
see, 12-year-old Bobby Crowley - the son of stone-mason Bob Crowley, who is
working to build a cathedral in Topeka,
KS that will be larger and more
glorious than any other cathedral in the world - is special. He has an amazing
memory for Bible verses, and a strangely wise way of saying just the right
thing at just the right time. And he has been carefully watching the formation
of a significant alignment of stars in the sky, including a new star that just
appeared three months ago, which are coming into a cross-like shape. And on a
Friday like any other Friday - a Stoning Friday that would see the stoning to
death of a "heathen, a whore, a pair of adulterers and a pair of
faggots" - Bobby takes his place among the great religious leaders of the
world when he steps forward and speaks the words "Let he who is without
sin cast the first stone" and in the process saves the life of a beatific
young woman: he gains a following and begins performing miracles, and providing
proverbs of hope, peace and love. Many people believe he is the second coming
of Christ.
Caught
in his wake are a prostitute, his teacher (himself gay and who has been forcing
himself up the weaker boys in his classes), the young woman who had been
accused of being a whore and set to be stoned, a seller of banned books, a
Catholic friar and many more; they go into Rabbletown, the slums of Topeka,
where Bobby spreads the true way - the way of peace, love, acceptance and
kindness, rather than the hate and manipulations used by those in power. And in
a world where the leaders all revere and emulate the practices and beliefs of
that disgusting scumbag Fred Phelps, those sorts of teachings are threatening
to the power structure. Bobby and all who believe in him and his miracles are
declared anathema and the Inquisition is sent after them.
This
book does two things: it exposes the horror of a theocratic, fascist
Evangelical Fundamentalist power structure, and it provides hope for redemption
for anyone who chooses to live a truly good life, and follow the basic
teachings that so many modern-day dogmatics seem to forget are the only two
rules laid down by Christ - you know, the one Christians are supposed to
emulate? Yeshua Christos told his followers to follow two simple rules: 1) love
each other and treat others like you would like them to treat you; 2) love the
Higher Power of Creation, in whatever form you choose to comprehend It. It doesn't
matter what religion, creed, belief structure or lack thereof you choose to
affiliate yourself with, these simple rules are common across almost every
single one, and are the only rules that are really necessary to create a world
in which everyone would like to live. This book - reading this book - will
cause a profound shift in perception and I believe, honestly, that the world
would be a better place if everyone followed the example set by Bobby. We all
need to become Bobbites. Read this book and see if you don't find these truths
to be as profound as I did.
Randy asked me
to read "Then & Now" and give him some ideas of the genre. Like
all of Randy's wonderful stories, this one is hard to quantify. It tells the
story of Stan Nelson and his time at KU in Lawrence, KS
during the events of winter and spring 1969 - 1970, including the riots sparked
off when a police officer shot a young, black man. Stan was a sort of hub -
center of a group of people who were all involved in the scene in different
ways. While there are a number of romance elements in the story, I think it is
even more a coming-of-age story - showing how the events and repercussions of
the events changed Stan's life and how he dealt with those changes.
Anyone
interested in aspects of the 60s' culture and events, and/or interested in how
people relate to each other and learn about themselves should find something to
love in this story. I was engrossed in it throughout and read it straight through,
stopping only when absolutely necessary, and then for as short a time as
possible. Like all of Randy's works, I can highly recommend this book to just
about anyone.
October 7, 2011
Fred
Underwood, a former English teacher and current delivery carrier, is fed up
with the high price of gas. He believes the oil companies are price gouging and
decides to take a stand. Together with his friend Zoe X. Quinn (that X is
important - read the book and you'll understand), he hatches a plot to not only
get some attention to the problem with the oil companies, but to make a bit of
money in the process. What he doesn't expect is for the Big Oil companies to
sit up and take notice.
Filled
with intriguing characters, and an amusing subplot involving skateboarding
gamers, "Spill" is a comic tour de farce that I highly recommend to
anyone who enjoys political satire, generally humorous story-lines, and great
writing. Randy has outdone himself on this one - give it a read as soon as
possible!
September 3, 2011
Randy
Attwood said that he used the Cthulu Mythos as an inspiration for this chilling
story; I can definitely see the influence. As the story progresses, and people
grow mad and/or kill themselves and others, we learn more about the reason, and
the sense of dread grows, as does the sense of unreality. It all starts when a
man who has a home at the edge of a park decides that the old, swampy pond
needs to be cleaned out and a new, more pristine lily pond made in its place.
But as the water is removed from the area, strange happens commence. What is
the source of the strangeness, the sense of unease, and the odd behavior of
those who live in the area?
While
this is short - a novella at most - a lot of story is crammed into it. I highly
recommend it for those who are fans of the eerie and strange.
When four young
college students get snowed in with a stranger in a small Kansas town, they hear from him a story
about an event in his youth that has forever altered his life and his
perceptions of the world.
Randy Attwood
says this is a story he first started working on in his 20s. Like all of his
stories, "The Saltness of Time" provides just enough information to
give the idea behind the story structure, and to allow the reader to fill in
the rest. Beautifully evocative, this is a story that you'll want to savor and
re-read. Check it out!
September 2, 2012
Brad's
father is a dentist at Larned
State Hospital
- the hospital for the insane - and they live on the grounds of the hospital.
Brad also works in the hospital cafeteria, and feels a deep compassion for many
of the inpatients. "Crazy About You" details a week in Brad's life -
a crazy week that teaches Brad more about life than he really wanted to know.
He learns the mysteries of love, learns the true meaning of fear, and is
involved in several murder investigations. Just a typical week in the life of a
teenage boy? Hardly. But Attwood's involving style and wealth of information
make this a highly engaging and interesting read, especially for those who,
like me, have always had a fascination with insanity.
One
of the many things that I found fascinating about this story was how the early
1960s are portrayed - and how very much like the mid 1980s it was; I think
being a teenager, exploring life and learning these things, tends to make every
generation think they are unique - but what they don't realize is, that they're
really very much the same.
A
coming-of-age novel in the hands of a master storyteller, "Crazy About
You" is a book in which anyone should be able to find something to enjoy.
One
More Victim" is an amazing, heartbreaking, beautiful story (says so right
on the cover) - but then, those are my words, the words I said right after I
finished editing it - I cried while I was editing it, and I'm not the sort to
easily become overly sentimental about a story. It is a coming-of-age story, a
story of realizations, a story about beginnings and endings - it is a story I
highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a well-spun tale.
Randy
Attwood's short stories are also always a treat. Highly evocative, helping the
reader connect in even the strangest ways - you can find my individual reviews
on most of these stories. As I've said, Mr. Attwood even makes snooker and golf
interesting!
I'm
so excited to see these two stories paired into a single book, and I think most
readers will find something to love here. Check it out - you'll love them!
October 7, 2011
Father
Christopher Talley, an Episcopalian priest, spends a week each year at a resort
in the Ozarks. This gives him a chance to escape the constraints of his life as
a minister - to fish, to drink, and to spend some time with a woman other than
his wife. He also writes his sermons for the coming year. This year, while at
the resort, he runs across one of his parishioners, the lovely Molly, who says
she is thinking of divorcing her husband and has come to the resort to think
about things. That isn't why she is there, of course - but she's bored and
decides to seduce her handsome pastor.
This
was a strange story - Randy asked if I could assign a genre to it, but
honestly, I can't think of any genre it fits into neatly. There is a bit of
mild erotica, there are definitely lots of different themes - finding yourself,
redemption, finding faith, learning what life is all about - but none that
relates itself to a specific genre other than general fiction. I really liked
the book, though - it had a lot of good things to say, and I thought the story
was one in which many people could find enjoyment, once they get past feeling
shocked about some of the issues that come up. I warn that you need to be
open-minded about the story, but if you are willing to do so, you should find
something in here to love. Check it out!
January 1, 2014
This
book provides a peek into the legends and lore of the Diné, or as they are
commonly known, the Navajo. Their creation story is beautiful.
“In
the beginning was the wind. And when the earth came, the wind cared for it. And
when the darkness came, the wind breezed across it beautifully. And when the
dawn came and laid its lightness over the darkness, We, the People, were
created. And the wind kissed our faces.”
Phil
McGuire's portion of the story focuses on two young women—Hsu Chi and
Zonnie—whom he takes in to try to protect, Hsu Chi from anti-democratic Chinese
gangs, and Zonnie from whoever or whatever has taken away two of her friends,
also Navajo, from their college. Attwood has obviously done a great deal of
research into the Diné culture, legends and lore and shows the reader exactly how
beautiful that culture was, and how much the European settlers destroyed in
their hubris. I do not know if there are any reparations to be made for the
damage we did to the native cultures here, but I find it been heartbreaking how
much knowledge has been lost. It would behoove us to find those who have kept
this knowledge and preserve it before it is gone forever.
I
found the talk Ko-yo-teh had with the old man at the filling station very
funny, especially when the old man repeated the message he had sent to the moon
in Navajo: “Watch out for these guys; they come to take your land.” Sad, of
course, but also very funny. It fits in with the overall theme of the book,
which is well represented by this quote: “I'm convinced the deepest passion
mankind has is the need to inflict belief on another person. Belief in God,
belief in these words as God's words, belief in this interpretation of these
words, belief in these acts in the name of God. If it's not religion, it's
politics.”
Overall
this is a fairly clean book, but I did note some editing errors, mostly extra,
missing, or repeated words, awkward commas, and misused words, such as
“rationale” for “rational” and “statute” for “statue”. Not enough to lower my
rating or lessen my enjoyment, obviously.
Like
all of Randy Attwood's stories, this one is absolutely amazing. I kept having
goose bumps from reading it. Highly recommended for those who enjoy a good
story, especially if you are interested in Native American stories and culture.
May 3, 2012
Disclosure:
I received a free copy of this short story from the author in exchange for an
honest review.
Synopsis:
A lone golfer discovers the fusion between the mechanical physics of golf and
the feeling of the soul.
My
Thoughts: This is the latest short story from Randy Attwood and will bring me
up-to-date again with his works. I like to stay abreast of Randy's writings,
because he has such a terrific and interesting style, each book unique but
containing a familiar voice. Now, I had to wonder exactly how he would make
golf interesting, especially in just eight pages, but I shouldn't have worried.
Listen to this description of placing a ball on a tee: And eighteen times this
easy gesture, this stooping over with the tee between the fingers, the ball
hidden, protected in the perspiring palm, the insertion into ground the wooden
link to earth the ball would soon be contacting - all this, for me, had given
the gesture a quality of sacredness. Isn't that gorgeous? The story is full of
beautiful prose like that.
May 2, 2012
Synopsis:
A tale of snooker on the Kansas Prairie, set in Larned, KS.
Circa 1965. Larned State Hospital
is but a few miles outside Larned,
Kansas. Jim, who lives on the
grounds where he father, the dentist of the mental hospital, has housing. He
rides the bus with the few patients who are granted permission to visit Larned
on Saturday mornings. Jim goes to meet a friend to play snooker and learns some
valuable lessons about race and also about himself.
My
Thoughts: Told from the point of view of a person who lives the same life as
Brad in Crazy About You, but has a very different attitude toward the inmates
of the Larned Asylum, the main gist of the story is about playing snooker. But,
like all of Randy's works, that is not all there is to it. I'll say this much -
I don't know squat about snooker, but he made the game - which is, I think, a
metaphor for other things - very exciting. I won't tell you what I think it is
a metaphor for; I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Check it out.
April 12, 2012
Synopsis:
The Mormons have left the Earth to populate the planet Moroni, finding their destiny among the stars
and themselves.
My
Thoughts: I have never met a Randy Attwood book that I haven't loved; he has a
real talent for bringing his characters to life and creating an environment
that is realistic and detailed without going overboard. This is the first
science-fiction story he has published, so I was quite interested to see how he
did in this story environment. And it was... brilliant!
This is
a short story, maybe it could be considered a novella - it took me about an
hour to read it through. I am not sure where, exactly, Randy came up with some
of the ideas he used in this story (I'll have to ask), but I found the ideas
presented evocative and thought-provoking. There are questions of
consciousness, how to truly access God (in whatever form that power takes for
you), the humane treatment of others, etc. Like all of his books, I highly
recommend this terrific story from Randy Attwood.
Synopsis: Can
the weakest human save us all?
My Thoughts: I
was actually on my way to go to sleep (I have a lot of manuscripts to get
through this week, so it's going to be a busy one), I learned that not only did
Randy Attwood have a couple new short stories up, but that this one, By Pain
Possessed, was currently free! Well, I figured I could fit in a short story;
after all, I did have to wait to fall asleep until after 8 a.m. so I could take
my medication, right? So, I grabbed the story and opened up in my Amazon Cloud
reader and started to reading!
Because this is
a short story, it is hard to provide a synopsis that describes the idea behind
the story without spoilers - that is, I think, why Randy Attwood went with such
a short and succinct synopsis (provided above). This story is about pain -
those who enjoy dealing it, those who enjoy feeling it, those who would rather
avoid the whole thing... Deeper, there is an undercurrent of facing up to your
fears and becoming a stronger person for it, but also a warning about becoming
that which you hate and therefore losing sight of yourself. So, there are a lot
of ideas put into this short story.
Like all of
Randy's stuff, this is a great piece. Fans of his work won't want to miss it.
Those who enjoy thought-provoking ideas and don't mind working a bit to find
all the layers should enjoy this also. Definitely check it out - like all of
his stuff, I recommend it.
Quirky, and highly readable
September 3, 2011
"Tell
Us Everything" - a girl's piercings create a connection that allows her to
see truths and broadcast them over the air in a limited area. That doesn't do
the story justice - it's a wonderful piece
"It
Was Me" - while driving home one night, the narrator looks in the next car
... and sees himself from 30 years ago. Is it really him, or just a crazy
coincidence? Then other coincidences start to show.
"The
Notebook" - Two people connect over their losses, brought together by an
unbelievable confession and a mysterious notebook hidden in an attic.
Impossible to describe this story without spoiling it, but it is very powerful.
The ending has a twist you'll never see coming.
