The Dark Side Of Christmas

Dark Christmas,
You gave Me Your Heart...

The Dark Side Of Christmas
Written by The Hobeck Team
Hobeck Books Limited
ISBN: 9781913793562

Just a short review of this year’s Christmas reading for the blog, The Dark Side Of Christmas, which I discovered by accident on Amazon... and also by way of a shout out to the publishers, Hobeck Books. The tome in question is subtitled “an anthology of twisted winter tales” and, while I didn’t find any really twisted qualities in the book (maybe I’m getting jaded to such things), I did read some enjoyable short stories. Now, while the batting average with me on Christmas anthologies by multiple writers is notoriously low (see some of my other Christmas book reviews over the years to see what I mean), this one was easily one of the best of the collected Christmas themed tales I’ve read in ages.

So, as you can guess, the stories are all written by writers who are ‘on the books’, as it were, of the small independent press called Hobeck who, I have to say, have won me over with this as all proceeds from the sales of this one go to an organisation called Streetreads, who take stories and books to people affected by homelessness. So, yeah, I didn’t know this when I hit the order button on Amazon but I’m pleased that Hobeck are doing stuff like this.

When the book arrived I realised the title, as reflected by the cover illustration of a beam of light transferred into a rainbow by a prismatic effect via a Christmas tree, was in fact an homage to the Pink Floyd album Dark Side Of The Moon. It’s not a group I’m familiar with though so, I may have missed the odd passing reference to this in one or two of the stories. I dunno.... guess I’m just an average brick in an increasingly bland wall at my age.

Of course, everyone is going to react differently to these kinds of collections and it will always be a hit and miss affair, very much personal to each reader. For me though, there were five stories (albeit three of them chapters of a multi part story used throughout to anchor the book) which more than justified the price of the novel. Firstly, a big shout out to Home Alone, Too by Lewis Hastings. This tells of a copper on the beat, new to a small town and his first meetings with someone in the community perceived as being a ‘miserable old guy’. Some small explanatory text before the stories are unfurled, at the opening of the collection (and given by every contributing author), explains that this is a kind of flashback origin story for the two characters who are already in Hastings’ other novels. This was pretty nice and perfectly showed up the rare, kindly nature of warm blooded human beings, for sure.

Another favourite was Payback by Brian Price. This tells of particularly bad, office bullies within an organisation and what happens when one of the victims of her boss fights back in unusual ways... and the chain of events this causes. It’s well paced and told from the viewpoint of four different characters, crosscutting between various strands of the narrative to allow for a complete picture of events to appear.

And last but, by no means least, my favourite three stories in this collection were A Christmas Susan Part I - The Ghost Of Christmas Pasta, A Christmas Susan Part II - The Ghost Of Christmas Presents and A Christmas Susan Part III - The Ghost Writer Of C. Y. Comb... all by Anthony Dunford and Wendy Turbin. To describe these small tales would not do them justice but, I would say they are very funny and filled with many puns and surprises, such as a moment where a robin... oh, no... no spoilers. A sample of the delights in store for readers of these three anchor stories would be...
“Still, it takes all sorts... Putting thoughts of liquorice aside...” So, yeah, these ones were right up my street. I’m pretty sure one of the characters is from a novel written by Wendy Turbin so, yeah, I think I’ll maybe order that one sometime next year.

Other delights on offer throughout the tome include an accidental murder orchestrated from another time zone (oblivious to the consequences a hundred or so years later), a tale told entirely from the point of view of a bunch of turkeys waiting to find out which one of them will be picked to celebrate Christmas with the humans (including a turkey called Arthur Scarbill... yeah, I’m pretty sure this one’s very much a political satire but, regular readers will know I’m no friend of politics), a Christmas murder club and even a tale which, I’m pretty sure, is a parody of the Joseph Rouletabille mystery stories from France.

Plus many more so, yeah, a varied selection, mostly crime and pretty much no horror... although there is certain story of the five I mentioned above which has more than one ghost in it. All in all though, the book held my attention and, yeah I’d say I got something from even the stories I found the least interesting. So as I said, a short review but a definite recommendation to anyone looking to put The Dark Side Of Christmas on their Christmas reading list. The book can be purchased from Amazon and, presumably, all the usual suppliers including the publishers’ own website, www.hobeck.net where you can find out more about them, download some free books and even listen to their podcast. So, yeah, well worth a quick surf over to their side of internet, I would say.