VOICES BY KIT POWER REVIEW: BOOK REVIEW
11/5/2020
  Voices by Kit Power belongs to the Black Shuck Shadows series, with each book offering a small collection of stories from a modern writer of horror. Shamefully, I'm a newcomer to the work of Kit Power, but these short volumes seem the perfect way to explore a range of voices within the genre. The collection opens with Baptism. Due to the brevity of this piece I'm loathe to give away too many details. The territory may feel familiar, that of an unnamed, and potentially unreliable, narrator recounting a supernatural experience, but this one quickly shifts gears and builds to a brutal climax. With this, the tone of the volume is set and leaves you eager for more. Like A Charm opens with John, a rookie cop in Las Vegas, who acquires an object which changes his life. This piece is an interesting exploration of guilt entwined with luck and superstition. Power, raises the questions, but leaves it up to the reader to decide what is truly at work in this one. Big Dog riffs on the story of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, as our narrator imagines what might have happened to the children once they disappeared into the cave. The horror lies in why the story is being told, made all the more bleak because it is sadly familiar to us. A man murders his wife and child within the first sentence of All Loving, All Knowing. The real story however, lies in the omnipotent voice of the narrator, who seems to delight in the details of this crime. The language, like the story, is playful, but doesn't lack in menace. Power uses long, run on sentences, brackets inside parentheses, digressions and asides. All of this perfectly captures the frenzied nature of someone who loves, above all else, the sound of their own voice. In Enemies we meet a protagonist who must face the many people who have caused varying degrees of hurt and suffering throughout his lifetime. The story moves in interesting directions as the protagonist considers who to forgive and who to condemn, whilst exploring all of the grey in between. William, a small boy with an unusual power, is the focus of Pulling Teeth. We're put firmly in the mind of a child from the outset and this makes what follows more difficult. The juxtaposition of William's excitement and the unfolding mystery of what he has done is unsettling and builds to a eerie and sinister climax. The penultimate story, The Hand, is an exercise in tension as our down on his luck protagonist plays a high stakes game of Poker. We see each hand unfold in real time, live each beat and emotion. This one is a strong, engaging story - especially for those of us who play Poker - Power captures every second of the game perfectly. The collection closes with The Garden. Almost a vignette, this one packs an emotional punch, fitting for the final story in a collection. Voices is appropriately named as each story gives us a different character, a different view, a different world. Kit Power gives all of these stories their own life and voice with his deft use of language, each as different from the next. This is a fine collection, one which leaves me wanting to read more from Kit Power, and is a strong addition to the Black Shuck Shadows series.  Bio: Bio: Grant Longstaff is from a small, suitably dismal town in the north east of England where nothing much happens. He had no choice but to write fiction. His work has appeared in Arterial Bloom from Crystal Lake Publishing and is forthcoming in Aurealis Magazine. He now lives in Glasgow. You can find him at www.grantlongstaff.co.uk or on Twitter at @GrantLongstaff.   the heart and soul of horror book reviewsComments are closed.
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