By Keith Deininger
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Marrow's Pit is another book from DarkFuse's novella series. It is a dark
1984-type
story taking place in a world where all serve The Machine. Their world
is an inhospitable one where they exist serving and worshiping a mechanical
contraption whose origin is never quite clear. Our main protagonist is
an unhappy man with doubts and resentment that are only increased by his
nagging wife. It's a story holding a lot of promise but with a
disappointing delivery. Ballard, our protagonist, is a hard man not just
to like but to feel any sympathy for. He makes a severe mistake and
stupid responses early on and it is difficult to really care about it.
We are left waiting for him to leave the relative safety of the Machine
yet by the time he does, it become clear that not much is going to come
out of it. The novella had the feel of an over-serious Twilight Zone
episode with a predictable build-up and a unsatisfactory pay-off. I
would call the book mostly dark Sci-Fi but with a touch of psychological
thriller in it. Unfortunately there is not enough of one thing to pull
in the reader and immerse them into really experiencing the tale. This
is the first of Darkfuse's novellas that left me cold. But hopefully
something will come up that leads me to read more of Keith Deininger's
work because he does have a firm talent, just the wrong idea to display
it with.
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