Tuesday, 4 January 2011

Fantastic Review of "Dream Machine"

Just found this fantastic review of Scenes from the Second Storey by Shane Jiraiya Cummings on Horrorscope. I mean, I can't ask for a better review than this one:

Imagine this reviewer's surprise, then, when the first story in Scenes, "Dream Machine" by David Conyers, turned out to be one of the best stories of 2010! "Dream Machine" follows Adamson, a man literally pulling himself back together after countless years of torture in Hell. Satan raises Adamson up as Hell's Assassin and then the fun begins! Adamson's journey to learn his trade shows Conyers at his imaginative best. Not only that, as part of this training, the reader is offered glimpses into scenes from the other stories in the anthology (a literal pun on the anthology's title, particularly given the perspective with which Adamson views these scenes). Conyers prose in "Dream Machine" is much more assured than in his earlier work, and his seamless portrayal of a somewhat unsympathetic protagonist (in light of the reveal at the end) shows his growth as a storyteller. Dark, flawed, but sympathetic protagonists is a theme amongst many of the later stories.

Read the rest of the review here, which is very complementary to the whole anthology. Congrats to the editors Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall, and publisher Mark S. Deniz.

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