pub: Elastic Press. 71 page small hardback. Price: £ 3.00 (UK).

check out website: www.elasticpress.com

If you like short stories and you would like your mind elasticised in a different direction then this little book is for you. Come to it with a clean mind and no expectations. Leave it with a sense of being inside someone else's mind for a brief moment and discover that people don't all think about their next meal like you do. Or is that me?

With the power of our brains being limited only by our ability to get in there and rummage around we should seek out more of this stuff that excavates the corners. As the title suggest there are six stories and they are silly. The word 'silly' is analysed as weak-minded or fatuous without meaning. It is also a word to describe the fabulous or absurd. Think of stories such as 'Baron Munchausen' and there you are on the same page as this story. It thinks of something silly and extrudes something fabulous from it.



The first story of called 'Fearless Flying Apartment People' which probably only stands out as a scene setter for what to expect but re-read for maximum effect. The stand-out of the collection for me is 'Tale Of The Little Hair Mermaid' but you don't need favourites when there are only six.

It seems there are less and less short stories published. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right places but most published lack any depth and have no life beyond the page. At least in this collection the writer has dared to dream his creations off the page and maybe something will stick within our own imagination and let us dare to dream out loud, too.

The power of words and what we take as meaning isn't always what is meant. When we read as we all take our own interpretations home with us and put them to bed. It's good to see the inside of other people's brains and what they dream.

Sue Davies