A review by keepcalmblogon
Tiger Chair: A Short Story by Max Brooks

tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

The Tiger Chair was an Amazon First Read for May and I picked it because I was looking for something short. Max Brooks is also the author of World War Z and while my copy is still sitting on my shelf, unread, I can say I’m a fan of his because I met him at NYCC years ago and he made an impression on me.

Tiger Chair is a speculative fiction short story based on a future in which China has begun World War III on much of the world, and succeeded, but has fallen into a quagmire on the United States front, having thought the politically and socially split country would be easy to vanquish and finding, when faced with assault, its inhabitants banded together despite their differences. 

What I liked most about the story was that it’s told from the POV of a Chinese officer writing a letter to a friend back home about his regrets and doubts about the war–the titular Tiger Chair being the torture he would face were his letter discovered by Chinese intelligence. I found the story to have been scary in that it was so realistic as a possible future, and yet it doesn’t actually focus on the war but focuses more on a man second guessing his country’s credo. I think POVs from unexpected sources, i.e. “the bad guy,” lend a layer of depth to characters and plots. In the end, this story was five stars for me.