Enter worlds both strange and familiar.
Travel through time, encounter witches as they move about their day, be enchanted by childhood fairies, and slay dragons from tales of old. Encounter ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and rocket through space to a wasted planet that auctions its one exportable product... women.
As in life, Twisted Tales from the Universe offers a range of stories that include humor, murder, love, and situations that never end quite the way one would expect.
As in life, Twisted Tales from the Universe offers a range of stories that include humor, murder, love, and situations that never end quite the way one would expect.
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2021
Verified Purchase
Having read Collier’s Book 1 (Twisted Tales From a Skewed Mind), a collection of short stories and wild scenarios that leaves one happily awed, confused and a bit frightened, I found Book 2 equally entertaining, cryptic, bizarre, ironic and tinged with dark humor.
In the twelve unique little tales, we find erotic and surreal imagery, sexual references, repressions, religious ponderings, ancient tribal rites, mythological and occult practices, perhaps a touch of insanity and delusion. It takes a well-honed imagination, and Collier has one, to conjure a morality tale about “morally made” fruit drink mixes, and to make palatable the need for procreation of the cross-species kind. We also “relate” to a hungry cave-dwelling dragon as he searches for a new home and a satisfying meal. Who hasn’t shuddered at the possibility of an immortal Robo-Nanny, contemplating aging in a world fraught with violence and suffering, who makes one last visit to a favorite child she raised, and doles out an appropriate punishment for his complicity.
There is a tenderness and sincerity to Collier’s style, a true grasp of the twisty material, as though she has lived through these vignettes, in real time or through paranormal out-of-body experiences. But there are deeper meanings in the stories - whether they are romantic dream sequences, recollections of a childhood Christmas, a bird couple contemplating a custom-designed home in a neighborhood overrun by monsters: deeper meanings of survival by brawn and wit, of the need for procreation, of a teenager struggling with out-of-date belief systems and finding her own truth, of trying to grasp that disruptions in the earth’s crust are actually caused by a disruption of cosmic musical harmonies.
You can look for these deeper meanings in the stories, or you can just read them for pure escapism.
I will now move on to Book 3, Twisted Tales from the Desert, (if I can get past the creepy cover); no doubt the stories will be as creepy and mind-altering.
In the twelve unique little tales, we find erotic and surreal imagery, sexual references, repressions, religious ponderings, ancient tribal rites, mythological and occult practices, perhaps a touch of insanity and delusion. It takes a well-honed imagination, and Collier has one, to conjure a morality tale about “morally made” fruit drink mixes, and to make palatable the need for procreation of the cross-species kind. We also “relate” to a hungry cave-dwelling dragon as he searches for a new home and a satisfying meal. Who hasn’t shuddered at the possibility of an immortal Robo-Nanny, contemplating aging in a world fraught with violence and suffering, who makes one last visit to a favorite child she raised, and doles out an appropriate punishment for his complicity.
There is a tenderness and sincerity to Collier’s style, a true grasp of the twisty material, as though she has lived through these vignettes, in real time or through paranormal out-of-body experiences. But there are deeper meanings in the stories - whether they are romantic dream sequences, recollections of a childhood Christmas, a bird couple contemplating a custom-designed home in a neighborhood overrun by monsters: deeper meanings of survival by brawn and wit, of the need for procreation, of a teenager struggling with out-of-date belief systems and finding her own truth, of trying to grasp that disruptions in the earth’s crust are actually caused by a disruption of cosmic musical harmonies.
You can look for these deeper meanings in the stories, or you can just read them for pure escapism.
I will now move on to Book 3, Twisted Tales from the Desert, (if I can get past the creepy cover); no doubt the stories will be as creepy and mind-altering.
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