Wednesday 21 October 2015

#bookreview: In Memory: A Tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett

In Memory: A Tribute to Sir Terry PratchettIn Memory: A Tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett by Laura May
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In Memory: A Tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett contains 17 very diverse stories with one central theme: Memory, or the loss of it. If you were expecting that all of them would sound like Terry Pratchett, you'd be sorely disappointed - after all, these are very diverse authors from 9 countries and 4 continents. However, there are echoes of Terry in every single story that you read.
I started reading this book with the presumption that I would love it. After all, it was written as a tribute to Terry Pratchett, one of my favourite authors of all time.

Personal favourites of mine (in order of appearance) are The Heart of the Labyrinth (DK Mok), Ackerley's Genuine Earth Antiques (Michael K. Schaefer), The Tale of the Storyteller (Caroline Friedel), and The Olivie Crowne Affair (Choong JayVee). They're a very diverse group of stories - Storyteller is an enchanting fairy tale-like read; Olivie Crowne is witty and and a little crazy; Labyrinth harks back to a more medieval time; whilst Antiques is set so far in the future that earth is nothing but a dream.

Honourable mentions go to Memoryarian (Scott A. Butler), There's a Tattoo, But the Robes Hide It (Mike Reeves-McMillan), Strangers (Robert McKelvey), and The Archive of Lost Memories (Anna Mattaar). Tattoo actually reminds me a little of Diana Wynne Jones.

Overall, the anthology is a great one - one that I'd likely want to browse through over and over again. It's funny, it's engaging, it's also a little contemplative and bitter sweet.

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I was going to delete my running commentary on the stories, but I guess I'll leave them as part of the review. (Minor cleaning up done)

Thanks for the Memory Cards: First story off to a shaky start, but I really liked how it went.
The Heart of the Labyrinth: Omigosh. Second story is awesome. *squeal*
How Fell The Towers Three: A bit shouty.
Memoryarian; There's a Tattoo, But the Robes Hide It: Nicely done
The Shells of Lethe: Reminds me of something. Not too sure I entirely like the tone it's written in. Was a bit disruptive at points.
Ackerley's Genuine Earth Antiques:I also really liked this one. This is a pretty good anthology. ahaha
The Chicken Gospel: Interesting in a very distracted kind of way. (Note: I liked this better on the second read than the first.)
Doris: Looked back at it to put a comment and did not strike me in any way positive or negative. Hum...
The Wondrous Land of Nib: I didn't like the switch at the end. I mean... if this is a Pratchett tribute, it really could have been done more stylistically over the whole short story.
Strangers: Strangers earns a heart!
The Tale of the Storyteller: Storyteller earns many, many hearts!
Bubble Trouble: A little ambivalent about Bubble. It started off great but I think it got lost halfway.
The Vivadarium: Meh.
The Archive of Lost Memories Liked it.
If Only I'd Known Not sure I got the reasoning behind this one.
The Olivie Crowne Affair OMIGOSH JAY VEE I LOVE YOU (I should probably delete this part of the review. lol)

View all my reviews


In Memory: A Tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett will be released on Oct 31, 2015.

You could get it on Kindle, where all proceeds go to Alzheimer's Research UK, or you could try the GIVEAWAY. Or, you know, you could be a terrible person like me and request for a review copy. But only if you're going to really review it, okay. Because if not, you'll be stealing from a worthy cause.

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