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antonism's review
3.0
3 / 5
The Hell of It is a free short story by Peter Orullian. Readers can find and read it only on Tor's website. It tells the story of a father who lost his wife and has to struggle to make ends meet to raise his son. The story starts with said guy Malen loosing his last job and getting desperate, a thing that leads his on a seemingly unending spiral of bad decisions and worse luck.
The premise sounds bleak and Orullian's handling of it pulls a lot of emotional strings. The protagonist struggles and Orullian doesn't give him a chance in order to make some great points about ethos, choices and predeterminism of social standing. His writing is engaging and oftentimes beautiful.
But... I hated the characters. They are not bad or evil but they lack any redeeming traits or when they have some then they feel totally superficial, fake or pasted over. They are also very bland and uninteresting. It's almost like the opposite of Abercrombie's characters; those guys are intrinsically foul and bad but they are all so interesting and loveable and you simply can't get enough of them.
Also, another big minus for this short story was the incredible verbosity and detailed (to the point of become utterly boring) descriptions and infodumpy background of everything. I mean this is a story of less than 40 pages long, and he spends a couple of pages describing fictional card (plack) games or describing the social structure of the country or the way the harbour area works etc... The problem is that these don't provide anything to the story, they are completely reduntant. We don't even know if all this world-building is connected to any of his other works. There were moments I was thinking that this was the most boring short story I have read in the last couple of years. Everything, every moment, scene or dialogue dragged for far longer than it was necessary. This is so sad only because it makes me hesitant to pick up any of his other works, in fear that they might be similarly written...
In conclusion, I thought this was a strong and moving story, cruel even, that unfortunately lost focus often due to the writer's need to show off his world-building and word-craft. It's free so you can easily read it anytime in an hour or two. Give it a try, you might like it more than I did.
3 / 5
The Hell of It is a free short story by Peter Orullian. Readers can find and read it only on Tor's website. It tells the story of a father who lost his wife and has to struggle to make ends meet to raise his son. The story starts with said guy Malen loosing his last job and getting desperate, a thing that leads his on a seemingly unending spiral of bad decisions and worse luck.
The premise sounds bleak and Orullian's handling of it pulls a lot of emotional strings. The protagonist struggles and Orullian doesn't give him a chance in order to make some great points about ethos, choices and predeterminism of social standing. His writing is engaging and oftentimes beautiful.
But... I hated the characters. They are not bad or evil but they lack any redeeming traits or when they have some then they feel totally superficial, fake or pasted over. They are also very bland and uninteresting. It's almost like the opposite of Abercrombie's characters; those guys are intrinsically foul and bad but they are all so interesting and loveable and you simply can't get enough of them.
Also, another big minus for this short story was the incredible verbosity and detailed (to the point of become utterly boring) descriptions and infodumpy background of everything. I mean this is a story of less than 40 pages long, and he spends a couple of pages describing fictional card (plack) games or describing the social structure of the country or the way the harbour area works etc... The problem is that these don't provide anything to the story, they are completely reduntant. We don't even know if all this world-building is connected to any of his other works. There were moments I was thinking that this was the most boring short story I have read in the last couple of years. Everything, every moment, scene or dialogue dragged for far longer than it was necessary. This is so sad only because it makes me hesitant to pick up any of his other works, in fear that they might be similarly written...
In conclusion, I thought this was a strong and moving story, cruel even, that unfortunately lost focus often due to the writer's need to show off his world-building and word-craft. It's free so you can easily read it anytime in an hour or two. Give it a try, you might like it more than I did.
3 / 5
jaymeks's review
3.0
I generally liked it, but felt it had too frantic of a pace. It hopped from one scene to the next, and then slowed to a crawl to jump again.
And, being a dad, the ending got me. Got me good.
I hope to see more of these stories of these two. I'm dying to know what happens in the future.
And, being a dad, the ending got me. Got me good.
I hope to see more of these stories of these two. I'm dying to know what happens in the future.
booksandbosox's review
3.0
Very depressing story about the lengths we'll go to for the ones we love.
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