Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Not quite the pits but...

Marrow's Pit

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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