Review: Judgment Day and Other Dreams [Kindle Edition]
A complex and well written group of stories
Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
T. Jackson King has collected very well written and interesting stories into this novel. The first three are listed under the subsection "On Earth", the next nine are listed under the subsection "In Space", and the last three stories are listed as being "Back on Earth."
To look at these stories, you really have to look at the sections. In the first section, "On Earth", you meet an Angel looking for a Jazz Singer to help bring about the end of times, you watch as technology fails and the supernatural creeps back into daily life, and you also can relax with retired aliens. All three stories are tied together by fear: the fear of death, the fear of change, and the fear of the unknown. All of them also contain elements of common mythoi found in stories told throughout the ages: Death, Mother Earth, and Aliens/Visitors from elsewhere.
The second set of stories are purely set in space, and while they show many different cultures and alien species, the stories are told from the point of view of a human... sometimes the only human in a sky of unhelpful aliens. These stories all have one theme as well that they carry throughout... that humans are just an insignificant speck in the universe.
The third set of stories are set back on Earth. These three are a little darker, but to me I think you see a little bit more into the soul of the human species. "The Fellowship of Manzanar" shows what happens when one group of people get ultimate power over everyone else... and yet the ending of this story gives me hope that people still do care. One sentence, spoken by an unlikely source of hope, made this story my favorite of the entire book. The other two stories in the final section bring out the darkness of our own legends and gods, and how sometimes beauty can come out of despair.
I highly recommend this collection of stories, and I hope that other readers enjoy them as much as I did.
