Book Review: The Dial by R.W. Warwick

*I received a complimentary copy of this book, and I’m leaving a voluntary review*

This is a collection of short stories, and it has the subtitle “A Collection of Science Fiction Short Stories”. It’s the first collection of short stories I’ve reviewed on here, and I was very happy when I got to it, as it gave me a good break from all the other novels I’ve been reading lately.

There are 10 different stories in this book, all of varying in length and plot. Some are 20+ pages, and some are just a couple. They aren’t arranged in any particular way (I think?), thought I wouldn’t mind if the stories became longer and longer as you went through. But then again, I kind of appreciated the random lengths as I went a long.

First of all: I loved this. It reads as the literary version of Black Mirror. (And if there already is a literary version of that, you know what I mean – I’m comparing it to the TV show). I’d say all the different stories are thrillery or thrilleresque. Some are scarier or darker than others, whereas some just have a little dark twist at the end.

The stories are:

Pemberton’s Dial

Whatever Happened to Pangaea?

Resurgam

Unending

Let the Cold Winds Blow

Junction Point

Reality, as always

It Were Aliens

Beyond Scope

The Far Side of Eternity

 

Now, I’m not going to rate them all, or say much individually about each one of them. But I liked them all – my least favourite was the first, and my favourite was the last – which was a great development in my case.

I’d definitely recommend this to any Sci-Fi lover. The book in total is not long, all the stories are great, they’ll keep you entertained and interested, and none of them carry on for too long that they make you bored. However, that’s the only downside with this collection – there were many stories I’d love to see more of, particularly Whatever Happened to Pangaea? as well as a few others. Maybe some of the stories will be further built upon in the future? One can hope – and I’ll definitely keep an eye out to see if they do.

Make sure you check out R.W. Warwick and his book here!