Wednesday 14 December 2011

Mayhem



I read Mayhem a short while ago and would like to commend it to anyone sampling the collection now, anyone who’s wondering whether to press on the buy button or not.

Do it, I say. 

Do it now. 

Soon as you start, you’ll want to thank me for my advice.

One of the many things I enjoy about Ron’s work is that it's so very difficult to classify.

Mayhem verges on the dystopian at times, horror at others. It skirts through noir and crashes into crime.  No matter what genre the piece you’re involved with, there’s one thing that I can pretty much guarantee – that as you read, you’ll feel uncomfortably close to the events and the thoughts of the protagonists as Ron really gets under your skin.

Under-pinning the writing is a sense of acute observation. These observations are then used as a spring-board from which he launches to land in a pool of a highly fertile imagination.

Not only are the stories gripping, they hint at bigger things, larger philosophies, which left me intrigued when I read them and in the cases of some of the stories, still does.

Ron Brown has shown in his many reviews of the short form that he understands the art and craft as well as anyone.  Take a trip through his mind and you’ll see that he’s able to apply that knowledge with the perfect balance between subtlety and hard hits that you’d want from a book.

A triumph, indeed.

1 comment:

  1. I was fortunate enough to grab Mayhem when it first came out. Impressed me then, impresses me now. Reccomended highly.

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