Howdy Folks! Sorry for the delay in reviewing all the stories in the upcoming anthology, Welcome to Pacific City. But many many thanks to all who contributed to our Kickstarter campaign! We met our first stretch goal; we’ll be able to pay our writers a bit more what they’re worth.
So what are the rest of the stories like? And why did we chose them? Read on to find out!
If you’d like to read the first part of this review series, click here.
Deal with the Devils by Andrew Leon Hudson
These days, it seems protests and cities go hand and hand. And our imaginary Pacific City is no different. Andrew Leon Hudson, writer and editor-in-charge, gives us a fun story that’s techy (is that a word?) and clever. Apparently, even super heroes (and villains) use the internet. But even better would be one of their own, right? This story follows the lives of two kids who think they’re getting one up on a city tagger, but soon realize their wrong. In the course of their antics, the city finds itself a different sort of hero from the slums of the city.
I liked this story because it’s complicated. Complicated like life is complicated. It also went a direction I wasn’t expecting. Deal with the Devils also has some excellent comedic dialogue.
As an editor, I’ve read a lot of stories. After a while, they tend to meld together. Standing out from the crowd by making your story interesting and funny is never a bad thing. Though humor is highly subjective, if you can pull it off, you’re far ahead of the pack.
Invictus by James Sullivan
Because Welcome to Pacific City is the first anthology (more to come, I hope!) in a shared world setting, we have our share of origin stories. And while I normally feel a little let down by origin stories, Invictus is the exception.
All our readers/editors found the story fast paced, romantic, and action-packed. And to top that off, there’s an alien. Every super-hero story should have an alien, right? But more importantly, Invictus satisfactorily ends the story of our hero’s “normal” life and gives us a glimpse of what he’ll become in his “super” life. That’s not easy to do, but James Sullivan pulls it off with exciting action and good dialogue.
He also gives us some cool, alien abilities! Who wouldn’t want those?
That’s it for this week. More to come later! (Maybe much later… but I’ll get them all done!)
Until next time,
N. E. White
N. E. White 