Book Review: Journeys Through the Unknown by Heather Beck

For today’s Book Review Tuesday we are going on a journey – not only the figurative kind that you always get to go on with a book, but an eponymous one as well. My review copy of Journeys Through the Unknown was provided oh-so-kindly by the author, Heather Beck.

Journeys Through The Unknown is a collection of six stories about – wait for it – weird experiences in supernatural worlds. Get it – journeys, through the unknown? I quite liked the title – and the construct of thematically typing together shorts is fairly top of mind for me lately, as those of you who read regularly will know (and likely be sick of hearing), so I liked that too. And anyone who knows me or my reading proclivities knows I’m a fan of supernatural weirdness and escapist writing.

Now, right up front, I’m going to remind you (or tell you, for those who are new here) that I tend to prefer novels to short stories. So I’m always a little nervous when I review/agree to review shorts because I don’t want to give an author short shrift because of my preferences and/or biases. Still, as I’ve been writing more shorts, I’m finding that I enjoy them a little more and feel a little more confident in my ability to assess them cleanly. Whether that’s a misguided feeling or not remains to be seen, of course, but still…

Anyway, back to JTtU. I was very intrigued by the titles and blurbs for Heather Beck’s stories. Things like sadistic garden gnomes, poor little rich witch girls, a mummy’s curse… It all sounded like quite a journey indeed.

But I have to confess that I found the stories a bit uneven. They were odd tales – dark, but befuddling. Now those aren’t necessarily negative adjectives – especially not coming from me. I like an author who takes me on a trip to an original landscape populated by unusual characters. In fact, I probably like it more than most. And Heather Beck does take her readers to places both original and unusual. But I have to feel like I’m being taken on a round-trip to really enjoy the travels, and with these stories I occasionally found myself wondering where in the world(s) I had ended up – and how I could get back home expeditiously.

I’ve been stranded in Brooklyn before – I’m not really interested in repeating that experience… (sorry – inside joke that only a very few people will get, but they’ll laugh very hard, so it’s worth it, believe me)

I’m not really sure what fell that little bit short for me here – it’s hard to pinpoint. The writing is not bad, either technically or stylistically. The plots are unique, the characters are freaky – both good things for the supernatural genre. As several of her other reviewers have pointed out (see Amazon), Heather Beck does have a lot of imagination. And I did find myself cheering for the villains more than once – that’s always a fun thing for me, especially in eerie/weird story contexts. Something just felt a little, well, flat and uneven – which I know seems contradictory, but it’s the best I can do to explain.

There would be great moments, snarky bits of dialogue, very dark goings-on (especially in the first story – Gnome Genome – which was my favorite of all of them), then all of a sudden I’d find myself asking what had happened… The characters didn’t jump off the page at me, even when I wanted them to (and tried really hard to make them), and a few of the plots wandered a bit. Overall I have to admit that I found this journey a little bumpy for my tastes…