-Axel

Peace,
Richard

I appreciate your comments very much on this story. I’ve not written too much sci-fi, but do try to paint with a subtle brush when I do, so it means a lot when that is noticed by others. I noticed you help run a publishing company yourself – are you open to subs in this period? I look forward to reading some of the other stories in this edition, yours included. Cheers again.

NTC

The thing that I adore about this piece–bear with me–is something that I feel one doesn’t come across so often these days, a taut little balance of fundamentally necessary elements (like an Iggy Pop song) with an equal measure of suited grace note elements (like say a Nick Cave piece). Fundamentally, this is an episode of Suspense or X Minus One, or (to move out of the radio era) early Twilight Zone–by this I mean the thrust of the story is an unforgiving and somewhat telegraphed line that none-the-less succeeds in it’s gut punch. It could be told in the year 1930, could be told in contemporary setting, could be told as it is –rather like Marc Behms’s novel Eye of the Beholder, how it was made into a film in Italy that kept a dated feel, old-fashioned even, and was also made into an American film which updated it a bit, framed it in contemporary device. The thing is, the light hand you give to the sci-fi elements is how such things should work–no big deal, treated as though perfectly ordinary, hints at details of a world that seem to be being told as minutia, from within, the sort of stuff someone there would notice and mention, not the sort of stuff the story itself seems to be pushing out as clever or noteworthy (a tough trick to pull, one that a lot of basically good work gets messy with).

Anyway, I’m going to cut off, just wanted to pay my respects. Good stuff.

Cheers,

Pablo

“One Break, A Thousand Blows! (BookWorks 2008) is a novel about the necessity of a radically new vision of art school in Japan and East Asia in general.” – Maxi Kim