Advertisement

I'm always anxious about reading short story collections as they often leave me unsatisfied and unhappy like a carbohydrate-heavy buffet breakfast. This was not the case with Triangulation: Dark Glass, edited by Peter Butler. He has managed to put together a anthology in which every single story was innovative, well-crafted and unique while still touching on the theme.

The anthology focused on themes of souls, glass and dark reflections and did so across the spectrum of emotion from fear to triumph to loss to resignation. There's the psychic hunting for her husband's ghost in an England where ghost detectives quote from Darwin's The Origin of the Spirit. In another story a boy makes the transition to adulthood when he discovers an evil eye in the sidewalk. A third story shows farm labourer helped with a soul-powered engine as the dead work off their karmic debts. 

All of the stories were brilliant and inspired. I'm incredibly jealous of the creativity and insight of all of the authors who were published in this collection. I admit to a little disappointment in learning this will be his last turn at editing a Triangulation collection, given the amazing job he did. This will be a tough act to follow.

John Enzinas reads frequently and passionately. In his spare time he plays with swords.