Dying Days
Eric S. Brown
Review by Alyce Wilson
Dying Days is a collection of short stories on one of the most dire themes imaginable. Each story is set in a hopeless time and place where something is going dreadfully wrong. The protagonists quite often are meeting their doom.
But amongst the devastating violence and hopeless, Eric S. Brown frequently provides glimpses of irony, of hope and of redemption.
Taken together, these stories are a variation on a theme: how doomed characters behave when they realize their fate, whether with cowardice, despair or courage.
The strongest stories in this collection with a deft twist of irony or a subtle resolution in character development.
Brown begins the collection with "Dying Days," about the final hours on Earth after a mysterious energy wave wipes out all electronics and simultaneously pollutes the collective psyche, leaving behind a plague of zombie-like, mindless mobs.
But while the source of the doom in "Dying Days" is mysterious and alien, frequently the root of the suffering comes from human folly, avarice or revenge.
In some, the culprit is science gone haywire: such as sentient nanotechnology or mutated viruses. At other times, the viciousness and greed of the character fuels their fates.
Without giving away any twist endings, the strongest stories in the collection are "The Return," "Zakku-Al-Rada," "Sorrow" and "Friends," each of which takes the story beyond a simple resolution and adds a hint of emotional complexity.
As in his previous works, Eric S. Brown deftly handles plot turns and skillfully uses well-placed detail to provide an image of the characters and setting.
Since this is a collection of horror and dark fantasy, at times the violence is gruesome. But for those who desire soul-searching combines with adrenaline-pumping action and suspense, Dying Days makes for intriguing reading.
Silver Lake Publishing; ISBN: 193109571