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Most writers have a debut novel to release to the masses, but not many have a debut like this -- Jason Eric Lundberg and his collection of stories that test our sense of reality and what is surreal. He has done the excellent job of putting characters in unusual situations that would leave us perplexed as to why we were there in the first place. In fact, Lundberg's stories thrive on the fact that his characters accept, for the most part, the world they are put in.

As most of the fiction is set in Europe or America, this is a refreshing change as all these stories happen in several parts of Asia where the land is mysterious and strange and you never quite know what might happen.

One example of placing characters in strange circumstances is his first story, "Bogeymen" which is set in a period of time where a young man is going off to sea on his first voyage with a captain, him being an underling who works at taking letters or so he says to his parents. The real truth they don't know is that his actual role is far more mundane. He wants his parents to believe he has a very important position, and as he can read, in those days he would have been seen as intelligent as most would not. You can get from the beginning that his father has an explosive temper, and even to think that his son is going off to be nothing more than a serf would make him extremely angry. When his father warns him of the Bugis, he thinks he is a little too old for being aware of the Bogeyman, but he soon discovers how true that is.

These are inventive stories, and there are only a few of them, and not all have the outcomes are as expected from this type of genre, but they are interesting to read for that reason and the collection makes for a compelling debut.

Sandra is currently writing some very, very short fiction, but it won't be out for a while now -- in the meantime there are reviews for The British Fantasy Society, Love Romance Passion, Love Vampires, and Fantasy Book Review to keep you up to date.