Unspent Time [Format Kindle]

I fell in love with Graham Parke when I read No Hope for Gomez, if you haven't read it I highly recommend you pick up a copy. I was giddy when another novel had come out. Unspent Time is a collection of cleverly witty short stories. I just absolutely love how genius his writing is, especially in this book because not only am I getting to know so many characters I also feel like I get to know the author as well. Graham Parke has a humorously dark side you just can't put the book down, and had me laughing out loud. Very enjoyable read and highly recommend this book.

Warning: reading this novel may make you more attractive and elevate your random luck by about 9.332%* (*These statements have not been evaluated by anyone of consequence.) If this catch line for Unspent Time gives you a giggle, you're in for a treat.

Unspent Time is a collection of short stories and I loved it for its humour, originality and general craziness. If you have a prejudice against short stories, drop it and read this. It's highly entertaining and the author's commentary links the stories into a unified and satisfying whole.

The blurb is a good indicator of the subject matter, so I've included it here.

Blurb:
From the award winning author of `No Hope for Gomez!' comes a collection of 20 impossible tales. Permeating the cracks between the past and the present is the realm of Unspent Time. Pockets of `should have been's and `might have happened's. Time that was allotted but never spent. In this realm we find the stories that could have been true. Such as the story of Kiala, whose aunt and caretaker disappears one day, leaving her as the sole Huntress to battle the giant octopi to feed her village. Or the revealing tale of Goki Feng Ho: the ancient Chinese art of decoding the meaning of car license plates. And the heartbreaking story of the man responsible for choosing the colors of the insides of your shoes. As he toils away in obscurity, his work impacts society in ways we'll never fully comprehend. And let's not forget the story behind Unspent Time itself, the metaphysical ramifications of which will leave the scientific community feeling mostly indifferent about it for decades to come...

Graham's vibrant characters shine from the first page of each story. His sensitive portrayal hooks our empathy and makes them, and even their sometimes fantastical stories, very real. I love the way fantasy and reality play alongside each other in this collection, and like the best short stories, there's more to them than just entertaining tales. For example, in the Goki Feng Ho story, a ridiculous system of decoding the meaning of car license plates takes on cultish overtones and makes us wonder at man-kind's ability to find and defend meaning in all sorts of places.

I give this book 5 stars and add it to the Awesome Indies listing. I haven't read No Hope for Gomez because it isn't available on ebook, but if it's anything like this, then I'd love to.

"Unspent Time Omnibus" is a wonderful collection of stories taken out of the creative mind of Graham Parke. With his highly adept imagination, Graham has written a series of ordinary stories with delightful characters and visible clarity. Graham follows up on his tales with insight into how he came up with the story line and his characters. His ideas come from images rolling around in his fertile mind, planting seeds, which grow to be harvested. Graham's story of 'Carbon Copies' was one of my favorites with Maud1 and Maud2, two identical wives with a husband that needs to choose between them.

Graham Parke has a gift for creating quirky characters and bringing them to life. He managed to make decoding license plates sound interesting. I never would have guessed what Goki Feng Ho meant and would have never taken the time to find out in this lifetime. This author has a unique way of looking at life's flaws and finding humorous ways to weave answers to the simplest questions. For instance in 'The Hunted' the question is asked, "Who is eating the liverwurst?" This ghostly tale is funny and makes perfect sense to my mind's eye. What is even more hilarious is who or what is doing the haunting.

I enjoyed reading "Unspent Time Omnibus". It was different, unique and a lot of fun. Graham Parke is a wonderful author who dares to take the plunge into the 'What if?'