I received this book for an honest review. All expressed opinions, cynical or otherwise, are my own.
Short story collections are notoriously hard to sell, both to reviewers and to the public at large. There are too many variables, differentiating quality, theme clashes. Some writers even intersperse their own works with those in the public domain, making their lists little more than a curation. Not an easy bag to deal with. Sands of Time by Beatrice C. Snipp (a pen name) is no exception to the rule. While there are one or two bright spots, overall, I found it far too simplistic, and disjointed.
The writing is earnest, often presented matter-of-factually. This has a negative affect of causing them to all blend together. Of the curation, The Moving Picture, perhaps the most complete. While a bit tropeish (I just created a word there), the simplistic nature of the writing helped it. And it was imaginative and compelling.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same of the other pieces. Smell of Death and Unwanted Soldier were both repetitive, and bland. My Trousers did not have a dynamic narrative, coming across way too matter-of-factually for the subject matter, and in the end was just not explored enough. For a curation, there seems to lack a strong binding theme to link all the stories together. Which for any short story collection is a death knell (an error I have done as well).
A couple of good stories can propel a flagging list, pulling a mediocre collection across the finish line. What we have with the Sands of Time are a few below average pieces, mixed in with a couple of above average works, all in the end settling into the mean. It isn’t bad, it isn’t great. A development project, perhaps a foundation – it will be interesting to see where the writer takes this from here.
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