The Signpost Up Ahead: A Short Story Collection by Stephen Wise - A Stupendous Collection Of Tales To Stimulate The Imagination

The Signpost Up Ahead: A Short Story Collection by Stephen Wise

"You're traveling through another dimension — a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!" - Rod Serling

Back when television was more than so-called Reality TV, there were programs that told actual stories. Stories that were fun and interesting. Those days are long gone, so those of us who want entertaining stories can still find them in books. In this day of self-publishing, there are more books than one could ever read of varying quality, and some of the best ones often go unnoticed.

Enter Stephen Wise, an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker who produces stories leading readers into wondrous lands.

The Signpost Up Ahead is his second collection of short stories, and it contains fifteen stories, all designed to fascinate and entertain. 

The range of what to expect from these stories is diverse. There is a wide range of styles and genres represented in Signpost, and the diversity of the stories should allow readers to find something they can relate to.

I read this book in an afternoon, not being able to stop, because I wanted to see what was coming next. I am astounded by the author's ability to put so much into such a small place, but Stephen is masterful in every aspect of writing from character development to world-building with brevity, but effectively.

The titles of the stories in this book include (with my one sentence synopsis) ...

ELECTRONIC TELEPATHY- An android working as a cop investigates a murder.

IT'S LOGICAL- Friends cosplay at a convention.

ODE DE LA LUNE - An orchestra director gives a life transforming premier of his original composition.

DERELECT - A family gathers at a party and shares their feelings.

THE CHOSEN ONE - A young man takes a journey to fulfill his destiny.

BANANAS - A young man tells a tragic tale to avoid something he loathes.

MOM - A young boy's imagination causes worries on a dark and stormy night.

A PERFECT COPY - An impatient man encounters a cranky copy machine.

THE POEM - A veteran teacher makes a difference in a student's life.

CLOSING TIME - A single mom rushes out of the grocery store at closing time.

THE BULLY - A middle school administrator makes a wrong assumption.

JUST A PHASE - A traveler takes a trip abroad.

SWEAT EQUITY - Former friends unexpectedly reunite.

THE BARN - A boy's routine chores are anything but.

VIKING FUNERAL - A last wish granted.

While I enjoyed every tale in this book, there were two that stood out to me.

***Spoiler Alert***

There may be spoilers here, so you might want to skip ahead.

I enjoyed Ode De La Lune. An orchestra director has written and prepares to conduct a premier of his own composition. He wants to deliver a perfect performance, but there is something happening to him he cannot control. It became a race for him to conclude the performance before he is overcome.

But the story that really got me was The Poem. If you are a teacher, this one will deeply resonate with you, as it did me. As a matter of fact, it brought me to tears while reminding me of all the young people I influenced during my own twenty-six-year career as a music educator.

This is the story of a burned-out educator who has given up and is ready to leave education. He gives a writing assignment to a class and, as he moves among his students, making sure they are on task. One student stops him and asks him to read her work. What he finds is a plea for help.

After reading this story, I had to put the book down for a long while. It reminded me of why I was a teacher.

***End Spoilers***

At the beginning of Signpost, the author offers this...

"... This publication bounces all over the place. Expect the unexpected, as the cliché goes."

Every story is a unique view into the lives of the characters. The experiences are sometimes tragic, sometimes frightening, and sometimes deadly. But every story is a fun little foray into many varied experiences - some the reader can relate to, and others one could not possibly relate to, or at least, I hope not!

My takeaway from Signpost is that it gave me an opportunity to reflect on my former career, and maybe see that, as an educator, I did make some small difference.

Stephen's first short story collection, Portals of the Mind, is an incredible collection of tales to amaze and entertain readers. The Signpost Up Ahead is another grand-slam collection from a writer I respect and admire. Both books are worthy of attention to a writer who is rising above many others as a master of his craft. I give my highest recommendations for Signpost and Portals both. 

You can find out more about Stephen and his work by visiting StephenJWise.com. He is a good guy, tells a great story, and wears a really cool hat. It doesn't get any better.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Stephen Wise is a multiple award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker with a Batchelor's degree in film production from the University of Central Florida. His films have been screened in over a dozen countries. He is a co-writer of Batman:DarkKnight, which IFC lists as one of the seven best unproduced Batman screenplays. He is a Michigan native and currently resides in Northwest Florida.

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Navvy Dreams: A Space Opera by HMH Murray - A Story Full Of Great Tangled Up Situations And Characters

Navvy Dreams: A Space Opera by HMH Murray

I received a copy of this book for free and am leaving this review voluntarily

This is a well-written and engaging story told from the point of view of principal character Polla Ottrava, and navigator and smuggler from a far-away part of the galaxy, where the lifestyle is mostly agrarian. The setting for Navvy Dreams feels like it could be part of the Star Wars universe but is far grittier. For me, the strongest part of the book was in the world-building. It is a complicated place where the rules seem to change often and at the whim of those who appear to be in charge. This tale is full of twists and turns and there wasn't anything that was predictable. There are loads of surprises throughout to keep a reader engaged.

I found the story to be quite cerebral - my recommendation is to read carefully, or you may miss something.

Polla Ottrava awakens from a coma to find herself emaciated and in a weakened state. She is being attended to by a strange woman and an artificially intelligent nurse with a bit of an attitude. As she recovers, she is offered a job that promises her great wealth and a ship of her own. All she has to do is help her benefactor defeat an opponent who is said to be a threat to the galaxy. Her function is to fly the ship to the confrontation with the antagonist. Polla soon learns she will not be allowed to refuse the job and wonders about the wealth she has been promised. My impression was that her benefactors felt she owed them her services.

Polla is also faced with a problem of her own.

Her navvy, an implanted symbiote who helps her in many ways, including navigating the ship to faraway places, is talking to her, but cannot, hear her.

Polla, who is slated by her benefactors to get them where they need to be is, in effect, crippled, unless she can get her navvy, or perhaps herself, back in working order.

The characters in this tale are all flawed in some way or other, including Polla. There are a few I really admired, and a couple I seriously loathed for their deceptive, and self-centered manner. Everyone in this story has an agenda of some kind and will use anyone they think can further their agendas. I found this one of the most interesting parts of the story, trying to figure out just what everyone was about. It led to a number of swerves that kept me in the story.

Of course, the most developed character in Navvy Dreams was Polla.

After an accident on a planet far across the galaxy, Polla wakes from a coma to find herself in a life-support system, healing from injuries she sustained in an accident. She is glad to be alive and learns that Sam, her husband, escaped injury, but she is still in pretty rough shape. She receives an offer, actually a demand, to navigate a bioship to a place where there is to be a final reckoning with a being causing a lot of death and destruction. Her payment is to be wealth beyond what she has ever imagined. But they tell her a lot of things. So, she gets along as best she can, taking promises made to her with a grain of salt, and doing her level best to keep her own problems a secret.

My favorite point of plot in this tale is how it was told. It unfolds in a noirish style where Polla is recounting her adventures to her husband, Sam, in a letter, a very long letter. There are snippets of the letter followed by flashbacks to the events she experienced from her personal point of view. Her recollections are detailed, and the author went to great lengths to give the reader a complete picture of everything. Those recollections are vivid, engaging every sense. The emotional content of this tale is also compelling, and the reader will find a complete spectrum of feelings.

My takeaway from Navvy Dreams is to remember to question everything and take nothing for granted, especially when one is caught up in someone else's affairs.

I enjoyed Navvy Dreams for the world-building, and for the principal character. I do wish, however, there was a more palpable conclusion to the story. I didn't have a sense of completion at the end. But to be fair, the author promises a sequel that will be a reckoning, including the answers to questions, and consequences.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

HMH Murray lives in Maryland with her family. She writes speculative fiction that explores questions of identity, consequence, and trouble. NAVVY DREAMS is her first novel, not hiding in a trunk someplace. Only one of the dogs in the photo is hers.

For updates, Murray's website is http://hmhmurray.com

Well, there it is...

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