The Unfinished World: And Other Stories by Amber Sparks (Epub)

Description

A highly anticipated collection of wildly imaginative short stories from “one of contemporary fiction’s true mad scientists” (Necessary Fiction).

In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks’s dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In “The Cemetery for Lost Faces,” two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, “The Unfinished World,” unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family. Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving, The Unfinished World and Other Stories heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary.

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Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ I am not really a short story reader, as a rule, but I decided to pick up this volume because I am acquainted with the author and had heard great buzz about it.If you want stories to entertain, make you think, and/or creep you out, this is the book for you. There is a story that continues to haunt me every time I think about this book or short stories still, and I finished reading this two or three months ago.I often felt I would benefit from re-reading stories, to get another layer of understanding or a bit more depth out of it, which I think is a GOOD thing in a book, especially one you are going to purchase (I am over-practical and want to be able to re-use my books as well as other things). Just reading the book will facilitate enough learning and growth that you’ll get something out of re-reading it either immediately or in the future.I’d recommend checking this thing out if you have any inclination you’d be interested in a book of short stories. These mostly have some kind of sci-fi or mystical/fantasy aspect to them, while remaining extremely accessible to people who are not necessarily “into that stuff.”I wish Amber much success and hope you’ll give this volume a try. (It’s not a big giant book, either; you can easily slip it into a backpack, purse, or large pocket!!!)

⭐ Sparks’s first book was BRILLIANT, in fact, it made it hard to choose which of her books I wanted to read next, I almost chose two, but settled on ‘The Unfinished World’. It is nowhere near as good as her first book. I blazed through her first book and I couldn’t put it down, but I felt this one tried too hard to remain in a specific genre. I feel like she had done enough of that with her first book, and she should feel free to explore more. She’s a very good writer, so, it seems silly to pigeonhole yourself if you have enough talent to take it to the next level. This book also tried to be abstract but it came off as an annoyance. I hate to say that. I wanted this to be as good as her first, but I just think it missed the mark. Ugh. I hate even writing this, but thinking maybe if you are on the fence which of her books to try next, maybe one of her others would be better. OF COURSE, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. I’m not giving up on Sparks. I will read more of her work. I just hope that she can sort of peel away from what is ‘expected’ of her and surprise me with something new and be just as juicy and amazing as her debut work.

⭐ This collection of short stories is an inventive, wild ride: there are (among many, many others) time travelers, man-swallowing jungles, an appearance of Lancelot, and a man without a soul in a story punctuated by Irish faerie-tale tropes. While these are not the most emotionally rich stories in the world, Sparks imaginative gifts largely make up for any lack of tearjerkers. She is comfortable in many times (past, present, future); many geographies; many lengths (a few of these are scarcely a page long); many bodies (men, women, gay, straight). My favorite was her longer form, multi-paragraph telling of the man without a soul, but the death house architect was a troubling conceit – a sort of way station to house the rotting bodies of persons whose loved ones believed there was some chance they might still have a spark of life in them, the caretakers of which must be both proficient in first aid as well as wholly lacking in imagination, which would make them mad. There was also the time traveler intent on destroying the masterwork of a great artist. Despite repeated trips to the artist’s age, she was only able to effect subtle changes on the great work. While I craved more of the longer pieces, there is no question Sparks’ rich world promises much future fruit.

⭐ This is her second book of short stories, after 2012’s “May We Shed These Human Bodies” and 2013’s “Desert Places,” a haunting creation (and destruction) myth co-written with Robert Kloss. The 19 stories in this collection deal in myth and make-believe, though Sparks’ brand of magical realism cannot be categorized as simple fantasy. No reader can deny her gift for lyricism when confronted with sentences like “We live in heaps of blight and scarce,” or “She was the kind of sickness a man would give anything to feel.” But in some stories, the balance between lyricism and narrative can give way. “And the World Was Crowded with Things that Meant Love” is little more than a catalog of gifts exchanged between a man and woman over the years, without any real sense of the characters’ personalities or struggles to ground five pages of “She sent maps made of clay, locks with no key, books with words cut out… They sent maps of where they’d been and circled where they were going.” Perhaps Sparks’ most impressive trademark is her ability to mix seriousness and playfulness. In this book, fathers and daughters hunt werewolves together in orange vests, Sir Lancelot is brought back to life, and a witch tyrannizes a modern kingdom full of TVs and sorcery, airplanes and transfiguration. None of these stories is funny so much as poignantly absurd, simultaneously tragic and comic the way some kinds of madness are. This collection will likely split readers along the standard magical realism divide: some will be drawn in by the poetic descriptions and sense of whimsy, while other will be turned off by the meandering plots and dense prose. But anyone can count on being struck by the quality of Sparks’ writing and the teetering stakes of each plot.

⭐ I purchased this book on a whim, because I liked the cover and the reading sample seemed interesting. Boy, am I glad that I did! This is a wonderful collection of short stories from a variety of genres and subjects, full of exotic locales and unusual characters. Read this if you’re sick and tired of pretentious literary stories.

⭐ I have to love the inventiveness and strangeness in these stories. The real pull for me here goes beyond that though. The inventiveness is certainly there, and the strangeness, and darkly pulling characters and story all the while, but the most treasured aspect for me is the way the real world seems different when you break away from reading. The stories leave a mark and you just don’t look at things quite the same when you’re done, though you might not be able to say exactly what is different. I guess the marvels in the stories perhaps let the reader better perceive the marvels present around them. Maybe I’m not making any sense, but I loved these stories.

⭐ Daring and original. I tend to be quite critical of short story volumes because they are generally very uneven. Although there was one story in this book that I found completely bewildering, it is a rich and wonderful collection.

⭐ I discovered Amber Sparks a few weeks ago and I haven’t been able to put her down. Her books are a tour de force through an acrobatic imagination coupled with a deft and imaginative writing style. I just keep rereading and rereading her work. I would also suggest checking out her web page as it is filled with more goodies.

⭐ Not your “ho-hum oh this again” stories, but smart ones that surprise you, stretch you, and leave you stunned. I was enthralled by the author’s unrelenting imagination and eccentric narratives when I read her first collection, MAY WE SHED THESE HUMAN BODIES. THE UNFINISHED WORLD does not disappoint.

⭐ This is not my typical style of book. I have not read short stories since college. Most of these are borderline poetry, filled with fluidity between thoughts. Each story made me ponder and think. Different but enjoyable.

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