SBP&B
for June 2019 Critique:
https://patreon.com/sharmishthabasu
Troy
David Loy
Midnight
Lantern:
A cruel, greedy man finds what he thinks are great riches hidden in a
discarded bundle of cloth, and takes them. The story starts out on a
bad note for his moral character and he gets worse throughout the
story, and he is left with a worthless find as a reward for his greed
and callousness. I liked this one, and did not expect the outcome to
turn out the way it actually did. I like unpredictable endings.
Mommy:
A family of witches, Rompus, and her daughters, Coldie and Goldie,
have an ambition, to move out of their hut and live in style as
royalty. Rompus wants to marry the two daughters to princes Smarton
and Perfecton, a desire complicated by the fact that Goldie is NOT a
good student of witchcraft and ran off on her own to elope with a
different man.
Rompus
creates a clever plan to fix this and ensure their lives in a palace.
But this plan is exposed, and the witches foiled by the princes. This
one had a nice element of humor to it, with engaging characters.
The
Stalker:
Girls are being hunted and killed, all with a connection to their own
schoolyard victim of a prank gone horribly wrong. Who is doing the
killing, and what was done to bring this about? I like that this one
suggested the killer’s identity rather than directly telling it,
giving the story an element of uncertainty that added to the effect.
The
Stalking:
I love a good werewolf tale, or at least that’s what the ending
suggests. An evil fellow is pursuing a woman he’s followed for
months, always trailing her in the shadows, when he finally corners
her to do … what? End up in a bad situation, that’s what! This
one has a satisfying ending.
The
Sword:
A greedy king and his court dominate their kingdom with a wolfish
army, and an unexpectedly beautiful girl turns up, sought by the
wolfish creatures. But something happens, and a choice is made, which
foils the king’s plans, and adds to the strength of his enemies.
Nice one, this!
The
Terminators:
an undersea explorer discovers a disturbing truth, on the origins and
possible fate of humanity, from a mysterious being he encounters.
What is that truth, and can he do anything to avert it? It all
depends on the choices he and all other humans make, as the creator
beings seem unconcerned by the outcome, beings existing on vaster
timescales than
humans!
Who, and what, are the Terminators?
Agnimalya
June 2019 Critique:
Other
Occupants:
What’s it like to be a ghost? Two years after Mahesh dies, he finds
himself back home – with other ghosts! – He finds out the fates
of the dearly departed, and narrowly avoids his own spectracide by
ghost-grenade. This one I enjoyed, as the story’s flavor reminded
me of Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice,” a favorite film of mine.
The
Creature:
A team of explorers arrives on a new planet to look around, and
return to their “ship” to find things terribly amiss. What they
find there turns out a danger to any future visitors to the planet,
surely making it interdicted to all exploration there – unless they
decided to nuke it from orbit just to make sure!
The
Glamour House:
Moving into a new home can always be trying, having to move out again
even more so! The new residents of a strange house begin hearing and
seeing strange things. When those residents, Ratri and Maitree,
invite a roomie to stay for a time, things get scary in the psychic
impressions department, prompting the search for another home!
Green
Demon:
There’s trouble in a retirement home when one of the more popular
residents is mysteriously cross and unsociable, so one of her friends
uses a magical ring to get to the bottom of things. It turns out not
all is as it seems, and a clever plan turns the tide, thwarting the
troublemakers, one of them a badly overdressed demon! Very cool!
Coming
Kingdom June 2019 Critique:
Rewind:
When things go wrong in the world,
who pushes the reset button? Who starts things all over? One and Two
decide to fix things, to send things back, with at least a hopeful
note next time around! Short, but sweet!
The
Town of the Doomed:
When Angelica pays a visit to her husband’s hometown despite
warnings not to, strange things happen, and tragedy strikes when her
husband dies abroad. A curse is revealed, and demons are involved, as
the story ends … not exactly well, but with a suggestion of
ominousness, of menace that lies in wait. This had a good ending, and
left
matters
uncertain and a bit disturbing, like a creepy but good Doctor Who
episode I saw once titled “Sleep No More.” This had that same
unsettling quality by the end.
Trick
or Treat:
Want to pacify a noisy ghost every Halloween? When a manor house is
vacated during that unholy night, sacrifices … must be made – by
the residents, with out-of-town, ahem, treats! I’m unsure of the
fates of those treats, but it certainly can’t be good for one’s
heart to experience that level of fear!
Wish
Granted:
The Prince of Darkness makes a deal (by contract, of course, because
that’s how Old Scratch operates) with a future minion of his,
granting a few more years of mortal life before eternal servitude in
Hell. But the deal is not all its crack up to be – for the future
minion, much to the amusement of Old Nick and his demons! This one
had a satisfying ending that both tied up loose ends and showed that
humor exists even in the Nether Regions!
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