Thursday, March 1, 2012

Book Review: The New Death by James Hutchings

I read this book in bits and pieces over the course of a week. There's a great mix of prose and poetry in here, and while the tone shifts from piece to piece, I think everything is well-written and certainly entertaining.

A lot of the material here carries with it a very "mythological" feel. Those readers who are into Fantasy RPGs like D&D would find a lot of inspiration here. I don't necessarily mean ripping it verbatim from this book, but rather see how the author has crafted each tale to speak to a certain aspect of the mythology and go from there. The stories involving the various divine aspects (Love, Death, Fame, etc.) work especially well for this.

A fair number of the stories in here are satirical in nature, and while I'm not much of a satire fan, these pieces are still quite good and entertaining. Some of them are also "modern mythology" and may appeal to those who like Pratchett, Gaiman, and other, similar writers.

All told, this is a quick-reading book with a little bit of everything. Whether you like Weird fiction, fantasy, satire, comedy, poetry, or prose, The New Death has something for you.

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