Format: e-ARC
Source: Author via Goodreads
Publisher: Spider House
Publication Date: February 18, 2015
My Rating; 4 out of 5 stars
Don't quit your day job, sleep through it.
Would you give your manager complete control over your body to sleep through a day of work? Or spend a night at a sleep lab to get a video recording of your dreams? Then Frederick Ran is a collection of short stories that include a restless husband who purchases a mask that lets him be anyone for a night; a bully who clones himself for a funeral to hear what people actually think about him; DNA analysis that thinks it can weed-out the violent at birth, leading to a difficult decision for a struggling mother; and 9 other distinct stories that take place in the near future.
My Thoughts:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of these short stories. The writing was great and I read through it quite quickly. At first, I was a little nervous because I didn't know how much I would enjoy different short stories. I thought there would be a lack of character connection and love for the story, but that definitely wasn't the case. Some of the stories were only three pages or so but I still found myself connecting with every bit of it...some more than others.
My favorite short stories out of this collection are as follows... Dream Factory, Pop & Lock, Protagonist, Conclusion and Facade. Now I am going to talk about each of these briefly.
Dream Factory: This story didn't go as I thought it was going to (well at the beginning). It's about a man who wants to go and have his dreams recorded. He has two pictures that he wants to look at before he goes into his sleep and those pictures to me were perfect. I can't say much more because I will give stuff away, but to me this story was perfect.
Pop & Lock: I am not going into detail about this one, all I want to say is that it was so cute and actually inspirational. It shows you to never give up on your dreams and aspirations. My final words on this story is, YOU GO POP & LOCK.
Protagonist, Conclusion: This one was my favorite of the collections. The reason I liked this one so much is because it makes me relate to life now. Everyone wants happiness and perfection, we always strive for that, but once we get to that point we always end up asking for more. This story shows that perfectly.
Facade: This story just made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. When you start reading it you may feel anger, but later on your heart will change as the plot of the story does as well.
Author Interview
Q. What made you decide to do a collection of short stories?
A. I have been writing short stories for the last few years and felt that I had enough material I was happy with to release.
Q. What is your favorite story out of the collection? (Yes, I am making you choose one.
A. Lol, Then Frederick Ran.
Q. Describe the book in five words.
A. Psychological exploration through future technology.
Q. What are three books you would recommend the most?
A. Only three is tough. Don Quixote, Brave New World and To the Lighthouse.
Q. If any story could be turned into a movie, which would you pick?
A. I think Gamification could make an awesome world and I would love to see Dr. Row in a series of adventures akin to Sherlock Holmes.
Q. What was the first work you had published?
A. A poem called Potentially Inaccurate by Contemporary Verse 2. I still have the paycheck from it. Eventually going to frame it like a big dork.
Q. When growing up did you always want to be an author or was there another profession that you had a liking to?
A. Acting. I originally started writing scripts. Might get back into that.
Q. Where is your favorite place to write?
A. No where in particular as long as it is quiet and spacious, I like to wonder around as I write.
Q. Who is your favorite author?
A. Miguel de Cervantes
Q. What are you working on now?
A. I have a novel I'm working on slowly, but focusing more on the promoting side at the moment.
I cannot thank Nicholas enough for the interview. This was my first author interview and he helped me through some questions and with the whole process (even though it's not tough, I was nervous). So a big thanks to him!
Everyone, this book will be on sale for 0.99 cents on February 18, so put that on your calendars and check it out on Amazon.
