Tuesday, March 19, 2013

REVIEW: Bouffon Stories 2012

Title: Bouffon Stories 2012
Author: Jan Jacob Mekes
Genre: Collection
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
Publisher: Kindle
Reviewed by: Veinglory


Bouffon Stories is a collection of tales Mekes wrote in response to challenges. These were generally in the form of a list of items or events that must appear in the story. Mekes’ readers obviously enjoy giving him a difficult task. Such as to write a tale involves walruses, and greed, and not using the letter P.


The responses to the challenges are inventive, quirky and interesting.  However they generally lack the element of plot (set up and resolution) that makes a really good short story.


My favorite was Bronies which uses a silly phenomenon to make a serious point. The Last Collector has a very interesting premise, but it proved to come largely from the prompt. Others were entertaining enough but I feel like they squandered the potential of unusual elements such as “a safe with a lock that has sixteen unmarked buttons”.

Even with my reservation this is a fun collection and none of the stories is long enough to really wear out its welcome, so I think it is a pretty fair deal at 99c.

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