Strange Concentrate by Mike Russell

 


Wow! Is that Mike Russell riding his bike through the land of the strange? Are these the trees that contain the fruit that contain the strange short-short stories filling the pages of his latest book, Strange Concentrate? Could be. After all, the trees are the very same color red as the red on the cover of Strange Concentrate. And, by golly, the yellow-gold is the very same color as the yellow-gold surrounding the eyes on the cover of Strange Concentrate. All very strange. But for those of us who have come to know and love Mike Russell's many books of the strange, Mike's brand of the strange makes for rewarding reading. Make that very strange, very rewarding reading.

Strange Concentrate contains forty stories plus one story extra, for free. As is stated on the back cover: "just add water" - in other words, we can take this to mean, just engage your imagination when reading. And what an engagement! With each of Mike's strange short-short stories, each one a page or two or three in length, I could feel my brain cells fizz, enough fizz I could sense my whole body down to my toes begin to fizzle and tingle. And, then... a glorious POP! I turned the pages - oh, baby, give me another strange Mike Russell hit!

Hit, hit and hit again. Yes, indeed...when we open to the pages in Strange Concentrate, we'll encounter some extremely strange happenings - as, for example, a man is introduced to a woman who has not yet lived, a Glowing Girl glows so brightly that no one can look at her without losing their sight, people in a village say their houses turn into magic houses at night, a woodland where all the trees pull their roots from the soil, a guy named Terry creates a utopia inside of himself.

Again, forty stories plus one story extra, for free. That makes forty-one hits of Mike Russell strange that I recommend treating yourself to. Does it get any stranger than this? Nope. Just add water.


British author Mike Russell, born 1973