Cabal By Michael Jan Friedman - A Collection Of Stories That Just Didn't Want To Be Novels

Cabal And Other Unlikely Invocations Of The Muse by Michael Jan Friedman

I cannot remember when I received my autographed copy of Cabal, but I am pretty sure that I was in the middle of some thousand-page fantasy story that I had to read for the podcast I am on called The Orbital Sword. So, since my reading time is very limited during the school year, Cabal was, unfortunately set aside until I could get to it. Well, summer vacation arrived and I finally picked it up and read it, and in a word, wow!

Mike Friedman has, for the last few years, gone to self-publishing his books because the big publishers believe that some writer’s stuff is too niche to have a wide appeal and that the books won’t sell. I don’t know, maybe they’re right, or maybe they are just overlooking some really good stories. At any rate, Cabal and Other Unlikely Invocations of the Muse, or just Cabal to make it easier to type, is a collection of seven short stories that are each unique, fascinating, and very entertaining. Now, Mike is not generally known for being a short story writer, rather he is known for novels and comic books. He explains in the foreword to Cabal that he wanted to write a novel about a superhero who is not popular with a small segment of the population, and a few in that small segment decide that the superhero has to be taken out of the picture. But he goes on to say that this story didn’t want to be a novel, it wanted to be something shorter, more like a novella. So, quite “flummoxed” as Mike puts it, he just gave in and made the story a novella. Apparently there were other stories running through his mind that also didn’t want to be novels, so Mike decided to take these stories and put them into a single book.

What is inside the cover are seven stories that are about various people in some situations that are from Mike’s vivid imagination. The stories are…

• Aztlan: Speaker of Verse: A short prequel to Mike’s Aztlan novels, we enter a world in which the Aztecs have survived into modern times. The main character, Max Colhua, has just become a newly minted detective and while standing in a food vendor’s line, gets a call to work his first murder case. A very high profile case and his future will depend on getting it right.

• Behind Every Great Enhanced Being: We get to peak at the mail between the moms of a some superbeings. Things get a bit heated in this one.

• Floaters: An unscrupulous old curmudgeon gets a common condition where he sees spots, the reason he gets them is uncommon as he learns from a source that he consults out of desperation. Only a change will help him.

• Flame’s Hole: A man on a quest to destroy a ring that could cause a lot of problems finds that there are more problems beyond his mission.

• The Wall: “Yeah, that Wall” is about a look at things from another point of view. You’ll just have to read it to get it. Quite thought provoking.

• The Scales of Justice: A young, but very intelligent female lawyer argues a case to try to right an old wrong during a time when women aren’t supposed to be that smart.

• Cabal: A small contingent of people work to put an end to the life of a superhero that they see as a super-menace.

What Mike demonstrates in Cabal is the masterful ability to take one through a story while at the same time, develop fascinating characters as the story is in progress. By the time one gets to the and of a tale, one knows the character well enough to have some feelings for them, and it isn’t always positive feelings. I loved the “soccer-mom” like exchange between the characters in Behind Every Great Enhanced Being. You can feel the tension rising between the moms of the superbeings as accusations and counter accusations fly back and forth. Even in this format, we get to know the moms, and the children they are discussing in some pretty fine detail.

Another aspect that I enjoy in Cabal are the emotional outcomes that I felt as I read each story. In Floaters for instance, I did not like the main character very much. He is not a very nice man, he is very self centered and not at all caring about the important position he holds, other than what he can get out of it for himself. I felt some satisfaction knowing that he might get what he has coming to him, and I laughed when I read what had happened to others in his situation. In Flame’s Hole, I truly felt bad for the main character because all he wanted to do was finish his task and go home. Things just kept getting in the way and I wonder if he will ever be allowed to go.

I have to say though, that my favorite story in the book was Aztlan: Speaker of Verse. I have read both of the Aztlan books that are available and have enjoyed reading about the exploits of Max Colhua in the 20th Century Aztec world that Mike created. While there is some background on Max in the novels, Speaker of Verse gives us a glimpse of the character before he was allowed to work on his own. Max is a relentless gumshoe detective who plods along until he solves the case. He is right out of a film noir, and is fun to read. Perhaps it is because it is familiar ground that I enjoyed this story, only just slightly, above the others. But don’t misunderstand, everything in this volume is of the highest quality as far as stories and characters are concerned.

Along with that, I gotta say that I sailed through this book wanting to read on and on. One thing I noted as I read was how the text flowed so easily along. It is seldom I read something where there is a point that I have to stop, reread, and comprehend before I move on to the next idea. There were no such places in Cabal. It is a smooth read.

I will tell you that I did contribute to the KickStarter for this book and that when Mike announces his next project, I will be on board. So Mike, what’s next?

Well, there it is…

Qapla’!