Review: "Basement Blues" by J. H. Sked

Title: Basement Blues

Author: J. H. Sked

Available: Kindle Edition

Summary: "Billy's client has a couple of problems.

She's dead, for starters. 

She smells bad. 

And her laundry equipment is trying to kill her all over again.

Saving the (undead) girl shouldn't be this hard.."

Review: There are actually three short stories, as well as an excerpt from another Sked book, in this story. I won't say anything on the excerpt, and will only briefly touch on the two other stories, since my primary focus (and it's the title story) was on the first one.

Really, my main summary is that it was fun. It was a funny short story to introduce us to the characters and the business. The plot was a pretty straight line and resolved quickly, but it worked. The characters were interesting and the first person narrative was engaging.

Sked's style in Billy's narrative voice could be a little choppy at times with a lot of short sentence, or so it felt as I read it, and that could sometimes be a little jarring.

I liked Billy as a unique creature, and the bits about his mother were gold. Sked, in Basement Blues form has a very amusing, dry humor which anyone who knows me and my own writing will know that I'm a fan of.

Lines like this:

As a negative, she brought with her quite a few dust bunnies, a number of centipedes, and a couple of large, extremely traumatised spiders.

It's the "extremely traumatised spiders" that makes it art, you know?

I had some flashes to Being Human with the shifter, the vampire and the ghost all living together, but I don't know which story came first. It's not a negative, just an observation.

The other two stories were Dim and Pushing Janey and of a far different variety than "Basement Blues" had been. Both good, although the narrative form of Dim could be a little hard to follow, but because of Charlie's character it was meant to be. I'm still thinking about that ending. And Pushing Janey was interesting.

So, over all - apparently I'm in a good reviewing mood tonight - I give it 4 Fireballs.