Forty Nine: A Square of Stories by Bruce Holand Rogers is a book that I helped Kickstart. Rogers has won several awards and his story samples looked promising, so I thought it made sense to help the author get some of his stories that publishers weren't publishing out into the wild.
Started: September, 2013 (?)
Completed: January 9, 2016
Recommendation: Mildly recommended
Recommended by: Nobody
Review:
This book of short stories was supposed to only grace my bedside table for a few days as the stories represent some pretty light reading. Unfortunately, the book slipped off the bedside table (I wish I could write some great story about how that happened, maybe it was in the throws of passion or perhaps the book felt unappreciated or maybe the dust bunnies got lonely) and was lost beneath the bed until it was moved, about a week ago.
The stories are broadly inventive and the character of Donat Bobet is a masterpiece. There were seven stories about stories (sort of along the lines of the book feeling unappreciated). I found these self-referencing stories the kind of thing that might be submitted for a high school English class (the quality is better, but it felt like that kind of assignment). They did not help the book. There were two stories that had me laughing out loud to such a degree that I was compelled to read them to my wife.
The author's intent, I think, is to transport the reader to another place or another idea. There were seven stories about hotels that were quite good and did this rather effectively. I enjoyed several of the stories in this section, and found one in particular quite insightful into human character (this hotel allowed guests to deny amenities to others, for a price).
I was hoping for some fantasy or science fiction themed stories as this was the area in which the author has received most renown, but was disappointed in that regard.
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