Calvaria Fell: Stories. by Cat Sparks and Kaaron Warren. 2024

CALVARIA FELL: STORIES

RATED 88% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE 3.85 OF 5

13 STORIES : 1 GREAT / 9 GOOD / 3 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF

Calvaria Fell is the first ARC (Advance Reader Copy) that I’ve received since beginning this blog in January of 2020. I’m glad the published - Meerkat Press - reached out, because it would not have been on my radar. The collection is pretty strong, feeling intensely focused on both its themes and mood. This is good because of how immersive the experience becomes, but can be challenging because of an emphasis on bleak, post-collapse, and dystopian worlds. The people and worlds both feel beaten down. Sometimes making it hard to tell the stories apart. If you are in the mood for it, this is a powerful artistic impact.

Calvaria Fell: Stories releases on April 30, 2024

The authors vary a bit how they deal with the collections dark themes. FWarren's storytelling often leans towards the psychological and the hauntingly emotional, whereas Sparks’s narratives tend to be more expansive, exploring societal and environmental dynamics in speculative settings. This distinction in their narrative approach offers a diverse reading experience within the shared thematic framework.

One glaring absence from the book is the lack of an introduction. Specifically, the choice to publish these two authors together is never explained. Are they friends? Lovers? Collaborators? Did they merely share the same literary agent? While I am certain that this has been done before, I have never read collection with dual (or dueling) authors. I felt the absence of that framing. Some of what I was missing appears in the marketing copy for the book, but it should have been in the book.

There is one new entry in my All-Time Great List:

• The Emporium | Kaaron Warren (2024). Children live and work in the remnants on an abandoned shopping mall. Alternating perspectives between the children and a doctor sent in to vaccinate them, more information about the outside world and the children’s families are slowly revealed. Great human characters, atmosphere, and world building mystery.

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CALVARIA FELL: STORIES

13 STORIES : 1 GREAT / 9 GOOD / 3 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF

How do I arrive at a rating?

1. Witnessing | Kaaron Warren (2014)

   Good. A post apocalyptic roller skating gang and a futuristic take on the surveillance state.

2. Some Kind of Indescribable | Cat Sparks (2024)

   Good. We made the machines that are transforming the world into inhospitable coral infecting people with the immobilization of ‘plastic cancer.’ In this story a mother of an infected daughter is at the inflection point of a a desperate choice.

3. 68 Days | Kaaron Warren (2016)

   Good. A terminally ill young woman finds connection and purpose at a secret science project that is preparing humans for the challenges of living on Mars in this intense and vulgar story.

4. The Space Between All Possible Ways | Cat Sparks (2022)

   Average. “Mad Max” inspired post apocalyptic story of special “trees” that are growing to protect and heal communities.

5. The Emporium | Kaaron Warren (2024)

   Great. Children live and work in the remnants on an abandoned shopping mall. Alternating perspectives between the children and a doctor sent in to vaccinate them, more information about the outside world and the children’s families are slowly revealed. Great human characters, atmosphere, and world building mystery.

6. Mandala | Cat Sparks (2024)

   Good. Vignette of a woman living in a world were “coral” growths continue to transform the world and make it inhospitable to human life.

7. Gardens of Earthly Delight | Cat Sparks. (2024)

   Good. Young children are sold to a wealthy family and their bodies transformed to perform the fantastic. It isn’t much of a life, but it is going to get worst when one of the children can’t resist their curiosity about what is in the rest of the house.

8. Air, Water and the Grove | Kaaron Warren (2013)

   Good. The crystal trees create new and powerful drugs. A mother tries to keep her sun from going out in a “purge like” Saturnalia and responds to his obsession with a grove of Saturn trees.

9. Dreams of Hercules | Cat Sparks (2021)

   Average. Chaotic tale of a young boy trying to determine what do with a hostage who is claiming to be a government minister.

10. Everything So Slow and Quiet | Kaaron Warren (2022)

    Good. Bittersweet. A woman making beach art out of the detritus of a collapsed society, discovers that there is a another artist who had been working on the same piece with her.

11. Doll Face | Cat Sparks. (2024)

    Good. Atmospheric dystopia story of the connection between Aloha Joe and the woman he scavenges dolls for.

12. In the Drawback | Kaaron Warren (2005)

    Average. A young man in a isolated society discovers a giant facedown in the sand.

13. Hacking Santorini | Cat Sparks (2020)

    Good. A boatman who collects exotic postcards is hired by three brides who want to go to the actual island of Santorini, but nobody comes back from Santorini.