A Couple of 'Fishy Tales' from 'Dead Bait 2'...


Sorry, I couldn't help myself... Actually, I could but chose not to... ;o) Anyway...

Sorry for not being around, the last couple of days, but life kind of took over and demanded I put the book down and do other stuff instead. Which was a shame because the book in question was bloody good, I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

'Dead Bait 2' though... Now, here's a book that I ended up buying for the Guy N. Smith story inside. Yep, I have turned into the kind of guy who hunts down short story collections just to get hold of one story... I'm not sure how I feel about that to be honest, I'd say 'middle aged' but that seems to be how I feel about everything at the moment ;o)

This was just going to be a post about Guy N. Smith's 'The Fish Thing' but that was only six pages long and I wanted to make a little bit more of the limited reading time that I had today so... Steve Alten's 'Lost in Time' was right next to 'The Fish Thing' so I read that too. Let me tell you a bit about them, there are no surprises in these tales but they weren't a bad way to spend a quick half hour's read...

I read 'The Fish Thing' first because of course I did, this story was the whole reason why I bought the book in the first place. And then it only went and turned out that I already had the story in the 'Nightmares from the Black Hill' collection... Seriously, you would have thought that I would have learned by now, but no ;o)

I hadn't mentioned 'The Fish Thing' in that review though so figured I was safe to spend a few minutes on it here...

'The Fish Thing' is only six pages long so I'm actually pretty impressed that Smith managed to fit a monstrous pike, the goldfish equivalent of 'The Telltale Heart', a dead gypsy lady and the most ridiculous killer ever into such a short space. The result does come across as a little too familiar (if you've read a few Guy N. Smith stories then you'll know that he doesn't like his killers to get away with anything...) but, at the same time, it's also a neat little study of the effects that the 'Pike Pool' has on Leo, the setting itself is pretty dark and hints at a history of evil that we never get to fully experience. And sometimes, that's for the best in a story like this, I like it when an evil atmosphere is left deliberately vague; it does wonders for the setting. Add that atmosphere to a tale of a boy going slowly mad and you have a tale that may well be familiar but is strangely compelling at the same time...

I've seen 'The Meg' a couple of times but never read the book, even though it has been sat on my Kindle for far too many years. 'Lost in Time' seemed like a good way to get a quick feel for Alten's work without getting stuck in a novel that I've got no time to finish, and...

It wasn't bad although I could see the ending coming (swimming?) from a mile off. This tale of revenge signposts its intentions very early on but the trick it pulls is in managing to keep the 'how' a surprise even though Alten can't help but foreshadow that as well. If there's one thing you'll take from 'Lost in Time', it's that it doesn't matter if your plan doesn't go too plan; a 43 foot long Viper Fish will take care of any loose ends and that is where the fun lies, even if you know what's going to happen.

I'll probably be dipping in and out of 'Dead Bait 2' over the next few weeks, lets see what I can find next. If these two stories are anything to go by, I could well be in for a decent read here, fingers crossed...

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