Entwined - Tales From the City

(Review originally published at Red Adept Reviews.)
Overall: 3 ?? stars.

Plot/Storyline: 3 1/2 stars.

I really like the theme of this, with the characters being connected to one another by only 1 or 2 degrees of separation, but in ways that they - for the most part - won't ever realize. Some of them won't realize it simply because they won't live that long. I think it's an interesting concept that can go on and on, and it looks like the author plans on continuing it.

A guy jumps from a building and another person sees it from a caf?? window while being courted by a man who thinks he could love her as much as he did has last wife. An ambulance shows up and almost hits a man who will soon stumble into a tattoo shop from, oh, Hell. This man's ex has a low tolerance for noise and vermin, who in turn ... well, you get it.

It is a hook that I imagine will make it easy for people to read on - at least it worked for me. I also enjoy that the author took it as an opportunity to do horror, scifi, and mystery/crime, and to mix and match genres.

I think that within individual stories that there are moments that don't work or missed opportunities. In one story, someone says some very literally true things which, in the tradition of good horror, later on take on a new and more sinister meaning. My quibble? He also lied to her once, losing a little of the macabre joy at the ending that would have happened if he'd always been twistedly honest.

A few stories don't work for me at all, with the dialogue being over the top and the plot being even beyond my willing suspension of disbelief, such as a tale called “The Interloper.”

The last portion of the book is the least enjoyable for me. The author tried to tie several storylines together with a new - or newly revealed - connecting character. It doesn't work for me at all.

Entwined is somewhat of a mixed bag for me, but I'm enthusiastic about this idea and hopeful for what the future might bring to this series.

Characters: 3 1/2 stars.

The vignettes and stories are brief and there isn't a lot of time for complex characterization. I'd consider it in the Twilight Zone range, in which characters, by necessity, are a bit broadly drawn and over-the-top. Even with this taken into consideration, some of the characters are too into the caricature column for my tastes and it felt like a line or two more - or less - would have made all the difference.

Writing style: 3 1/2 stars.

I enjoyed Mr. Armitt's writing well enough most of the time, but I must confess that there is something a bit off, a bit missing for me. It feels as if some of the stories are a couple beats off from meeting their true potential. The language is good, but it didn't delight me the way that it should. These types of stories and this format beg for a writer at his cleverest, and I felt that potential more than I saw it on the page. There were moments and revelations that I feel would have creeped me out more in other hands. This is the subjective stuff though, and if a reader likes the rest of the review, the area where perhaps our author could be given the benefit of the doubt for at least a sample.

Editing: 3 3/4 stars.

None of the issues are severe enough to ruin the book, but this could have used another pair of eyes or a careful read through to catch some issues, such as a tendency to change tenses mid-sentence (Apart from me and this big woman sat at the window, the caf?? was empty.) typos such as “though” instead of “thought,” missing punctuation, and issues with capitalization. I deem it beyond the pesky 1 or 2 mistakes that get through even a diligent edit.

Note: With anthologies, I love when they're set up so that I can use my 5 way controller to shuffle between stories. (Heck, I love it even in non-anthologies so that I can move between chapters.) Needless to say, I would have enjoyed that here, particularly because the stories are connected and reference one another. There is no Table of Contents either, which would have been second best. (Both would be ideal.)

At 3 1/2 stars, I had to either round up or down for the Amazon rating. I didn't feel comfortable with 3 stars, but I felt less comfortable with 4 stars, so there you have it.