Freaks
By Caroline Smailes, Nik Perring and Darren Craske
4.5/5
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About this ebook
The weirdest stories you will ever read.
A bizarre collection of short stories, each featuring a character with an unusual superpower.
Meet The Photocopier, a woman who can reproduce herself at will and who attempts to teach her daughter to do the same.
Or the zombie hairdresser who is able to reanimate every time she dies.
And the man who can break his way into his lover’s dream.
Over fifty freaks and misfits feature in this unforgettable book, and each is illustrated by comic book artist Darren Craske.
This book contains some text-based images that are optimised for tablet devices.
Caroline Smailes
CAROLINE SMAILES lives in the North West of England with her husband and three children. The Drowning of Arthur Braxton is her fifth novel. She can be found at www.carolinesmailes.co.uk and twitter.com/Caroline_S
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Reviews for Freaks
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I suppose I should have started Freaks with the supposition that this short story collection has a serious message to deliver, but it was not until the book’s dedication that I was finally clued in. That dedication reads: “to all who, if only for a moment, felt that they didn’t belong.” We are all freaks, as it turns out, and we all have super powers whether we deserve them or not. The question we are left with is what we choose to do with those super powers because too many of them have the potential to ruin lives – and not just our own. Freaks is a beautifully packaged (in the guise of an old fashioned comic book) collection of fifty pieces of flash fiction recently published in the U.K. Some of the stories were written by Nik Perring, some by Caroline Smailes, and others are a combination of their efforts. In addition, illustrator Darren Craske provides mood-setting comic-book-style illustrations that add greatly to the fun. Don’t get me wrong. There are stories here about people with “legitimate” super powers. One woman, for instance, can duplicate herself by spinning in circles. But even that story is really more about the little girl who has unexpectedly failed to inherit her mother’s ability to “photocopy” herself. Too, “The Photocopier” is a good example of the tone and writing style to be found in so many of these stories. Here, for instance, is the girl’s reaction to seeing her mother throw off five copies of herself for the very first time:“I swear to Christ it was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen. There was me with wee in me knickers, with six of me mums standing there smiling at me like nutters.”You have to love that image.“The Photocopier” is the first story in the book and, if I am reading the rather disturbing little tale “Maman, Flying” correctly, that one comprises the perfect bookend to put finish to the collection. Opinions about what really happens in the little five-paragraph story may vary from reader to reader – and, for readers like me, from reading to reading – but “Maman, Flying” is the perfect offset to the comic mood of the book’s opening.Freaks is a book about relationships – relationships between husbands and wives, lovers, potential lovers, friends, students, and parents and their children - all kinds of relationships. Some of the super powers described in Freaks will surprise you because you might already have one or two of them yourself. For sure, you know someone who has them, and you just might have had some of them used against you.This one is fun, but there is more here than initially meets the eye. My fellow freaks are sure to enjoy it.Rated at: 4.0