Oddities & Entities

Winner (Horror)
Title: Oddities & Entities
Author: Roland Allnach
Publisher: All Things That Matter Press
ISBN: 9780985006648
Pages: 268, Paperback/Kindle
Genre: Horror/Supernatural/Science Fiction
 

Reviewed by: Jason Lulos, Pacific Book Review

Book Review

The borders between psyches, humans and the world, the natural and the supernatural are not shattered; they are subtly made fluid as bridges themselves. Each story in “Oddities and Entities” is beautifully written and the flawed characters, from fallen angels to reluctant vampires, do not just romantically accept their nature as some cookie cutter cult figures might. These characters, in Hamlet-esque style, question the hell out of who they are and therefore take philosophical and psychological tangents about what they are in relation to the world.

“Boneview” is the first story in the collection. Allison, an atypical Goth girl, plagued and protected by a ghoul. In the end, she must make a choice between two kinds of sight. It is a Bildungsroman, beautifully dark.

“Shift/Change” is composed of two stories which surprisingly intertwine. John, a literal or figurative fallen angel, finds potential redemption while working with a hedonist in the mortuary of a hospital. Think Night Shift but written by Stephen King or the Coen brothers.

Mo, short for “My Other Me,” an alter-ego and more. What starts out as a dark vignette about a shy young Noel stalking a young beauty becomes a similarly dark, but slapstick dual personality war in which Noel and Mo take turns kicking each other out of Mo and Noel’s body. A wonderful philosophical tangent comes from the shadowed (out of body) Noel, who struggles with this new way of perceiving the world. “If what he perceived as his intellect was a fantasy generated by his own flesh, then the perception of existence about his flesh was fantasy as well. Nothing was real, and so everything was real.” A fine deconstruction.

“Gray.” Dave, our protagonist has a small man expelled from his brain during a feverish bout of nose blowing. The homunculus, “Gray,” is not the ghost in the machine; he’s a symbiote who establishes order, living in virtual harmony with his human comrade since birth. Perhaps a comment on the fallacy that the world can be described or even lived in binary oppositions, the gray symbolizes the fluctuation between black and white concepts such as order and freedom.

A reluctant vampire, “Elmer Phelps,” unwilling to join the fraternity and sorority of the unspoken vampires, falls in love with Samantha, a waitress at the local diner. A small town love story, with charm and sensitivity, turns into an all out blood bath before it’s over. Elmer’s older sister praises the immortal lifestyle and shy Elmer’s conscience resists. She is a psychic bridge to Elmer, a depraved but protective older sister, encouraging Elmer to partake in all things forbidden.

The final, and aptly named, appending story is “Appendage.” Think of a Buddhist or Transcendentalist Island of Dr. Moreau. Randal is a mercenary hired by his son, Jonah, to protect his discovery of an elixir called “Purity,” a veritable panacea. The miracle drug from the jungle is a kind of “cure all” but not exactly a new “discovery.” Sort of a spoiler: The “villagers” have mastered a certain art: Transcendental in mind and body. What reads like an action/horror story actually segues nicely to an end (or a bridge, I should say) connecting humans and nature with a lyrical lasting image of the rustling of leaves as the echoes of our ancestors. This is a great book. Nothing you expect to happen, happens. The author keeps you thinking and turning the page over and over.