I can sum up my feelings about this book in one sentence: wave upon wave of disappointment.

This isn’t a criticism, however.

Firstly, it’s not immediately obvious that this book is not a novel but a collection of short stories.  I saw the title and thought ‘ah, it’s about ‘that Wow signal, which is a pretty spiffy story in itself’ and picked it up on this premise.  Dipstick here doesn’t read the backs of free books.

The stories inside are what I would class as largely domestic, on the whole.  They’re about break-ups, first jobs, deaths and love.  Towards the end, the stories become more fantastical with larger than life characters as well as angels and demons, and it’s there stories that I enjoyed the most.  They’re touching, quietly funny and very readable stories.  Not a brain strain.  Like a literary blanket.

But this is where the disappointment  comes up again.  Just as I was starting to really get into the characters, the set up, the feel of a story, it stops.  Angels and demons sitting around smoking and bitching about the state of the house during a break up?  Excellent.  But I only get 14 pages of it.  Failed sci-fi actress who bathes in chocolate and gets off on the very same brown elixir?  Enormously entertaining.  I could read a whole novel about her.  But I don’t get one.  I have 23 pages to enjoy and then it’s over.

Short stories contain themselves in their very nature, giving us the cream and chocolate shavings from the top of the characters’ life as an indulgent snack.   Chapman’s stories felt more like a tease though - as if he gave us the cream and shavings but then kept the marshmallows and rich chocolate drink for himself and consumed them slowly in front of us, ‘mmm’ing loudly.

This is a ‘hook’ book that’ll get you onto his other writings.  If this was his intent, mission accomplished.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 4:19 am and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.