Lee S Hawke – gimmethatbook

BEAUTY. GRIEF. MINDS. EVERYTHING IS DIVISIBLE.

From LEE S. HAWKE, author of The Changeling and the Sun (published by Ideomancer Speculative Fiction Magazine) comes DIVISION: A COLLECTION OF SCIENCE FICTION FAIRYTALES.
Featuring 7 original, fairytale-inspired science fiction short stories, this collection explores the division between mind, body, technology, and humanity in Hawke’s trademark haunting style.

Inside:
A chronically ill civilian discovers that his immune system may be the key to human survival.
A schoolgirl tries to escape her demons through levels of virtual reality.
A data analyst falls in love with a software coder during a forced government assignment.
A young boy is confronted with a horrifying truth about his constructed world.
A jaded medical technician rediscovers the meaning of beauty.
A girl scrambles to escape a horrifying alien invasion in a futuristic dystopia.
And a spaceship engineer struggles with the death of her only daughter.
Metaphysical and visionary, this collection of fantastic fiction combines humor, wonder, horror and humanity to create an enduring anthology of fairy tales for adults.

Thanks to Erica at Blind Mirror Publishing for offering me DIVISION in exchange for this honest review. Also, thanks for providing the three digital copies of the book that we’re giving away in the raffle below! Entering is easy, so you have no excuse not to do it.

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Short stories are always good to read in between longer books, because they serve as a palate cleanser and give you things to think about in a small package. DIVISION was awesome to read because the sci-fi wasn’t overly technical; the stories were all basically dystopian and mostly believable; and there was just enough of an odd twist to make you take a breath and consider the possibilities of what you just read.

The twist is not always glaringly obvious–you need to read the story (or parts of it) over again to grasp what Hawke is saying. In the story about the boy trying to get beyond the giant gray Wall that surrounds his town, the descriptions of the road become more and more detailed, until you realize what, exactly, the road is made of. That’s when you get that chill in your heart and know you are dealing with a writer with talent. Short stories are hard to create–you have to have a hook, interesting characters, and a plot that wraps up just as things get going. Hawke has constructed some fine work here, for sure.

Perhaps my favorite one was the story about the forced interaction between the data analyst and the software coder. Appropriately dystopian and government controlled, I thought it would be a lot darker than it turned out to be–but still satisfying nonetheless. Maybe I liked it because it was the most benign one of them all. Remember what I said: odd twists and hints of darker things that sometimes lurk in the basement, or in the far reaches of our mind, where we don’t want to go.

If you like sci fi or dystopian work, you will enjoy DIVISION. All the stories have characters that you can sympathize with, and situations that will ring true. Excellent job by Lee S. Hawke on this collection, and I’d love to see more.

Want your own copy? You can pick it up [easyazon_link asin=”1925299015″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”gimmethatbook-20″ add_to_cart=”yes” cloaking=”default” localization=”yes” popups=”yes”]here[/easyazon_link].