Strange Medicine – Mike Russell

 

*I received a free copy of this book, with thanks to the author. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*

 

 

Blurb:  We recommend the following prescription: Strange Medicine – weird and wonderful stories for all that ails you.Strange Medicine is a fantastic collection of extraordinary tales of transformation by UK weird-fiction author Mike Russell. If you love the strange, surreal and unusual or if you are just looking for something different, Strange Medicine is for you.

 

 

 

 

Another collection of the strange, bizarre and surreal from Mike Russell in Strange Medicine.

In these short stories he conjures up variously a man precariously constructed and confused; a couple haunted by bridges and walls; a love affair with a telephone; a world where mimes are outlawed; a grief-stricken father full of hate; a person consumed by paranoia; an intellectual with brain problems; and a highly unusual shoulder-fish.

As I found previously with Mr Russell’s short stories, to describe them is ridiculous, as on the surface they seem nonsensical – odd dreams and fancies with no rhyme or reason behind them.  Yet when you actually read the stories you find that beneath the strange surface you are actually reading about very sensible and logical things: loneliness, grief, hubris, love, understanding… the gamut of human emotions and experiences.

This collection of stories entertained me as I read them, but kept me thinking, turning over the ideas and feelings presented, long after I had put the book down.

 

‘In the future,’ the woman says, ‘I remember a man like you.’
Anthony Tobias Bradshaw slowly lowers his newspaper.
‘I am sorry, madam, are you talking to me?’  Anthony Tobias Bradshaw enquires, knowing perfectly well that she is but wanting the woman to understand just how impertinent it is of her to be doing so.
The woman ignores Anthony Tobias Bradshaw’s question and says:
‘One day, the man realised that he wasn’t a man at all but that he was, in fact, sixteen birds.  At the moment of realisation, the birds all suddenly took flight, each one flying off in a completely different direction.’

– Mike Russell, ‘Flock’ in Strange Medicine

 

 

Find more from Mike Russell at his website here, or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Goodreads.

Strange Medicine is available on Amazon right now!

 

 

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