Download And Enjoy Crushed Mexican Spiders / Possibly Forty Ships Constructed By Tibor Fischer Supplied As Print

first thing to note about the book is how short it is, "Crushed Mexican Spiders" is a merepages on small pages and "Possibly Forty Ships" ispages, The book is nicely put together, a dinky hardback with the stories printed flipside by side so you have to turn the book around to read the other story when you've finished the other one, and the jacket is nicely designed.
And that's basically what you're paying for, a nicely put together book with some okish but very short stories,

"CMS" is about what living in London does to a person, how it changes them from decent people into soulless, mistrustful drones.
A woman returning from a business trip finds her key won't open her flat door and that someone else is living in it.
She doesn't recognise her neighbours nor does anyone recognise her, Her bank cards don't work, her friends and family phone numbers don't work, and she is all alone in London with nowhere to go and no

idea what's happened to her life.
The story stands out for its ambiguity and could be read as what homelessness and mental illness must be like or a kind of witch's curse story the protagonist kills her neighbour's spiders who were specially bred maybe her neighbour magicked her life away.
But it's haunting finale and overall creepy factor make this an interesting story and the better of the two,

"PFS" is about what "really" happened at Troy and is told by a witness of the events, revealing that in fact what happened was there were far fewer ships, men, and heroes, and it was mostly a lie.
It's an interestingish idea, that I think Fischer thought was funny but really isn't, and the writing of it isn't that great to read.
Also, who cares about Troy really

The book is put out by Unbound, a crowd sourced publisher who say they are doing something revolutionary though they are only putting out second rate material from already established writers for my money, not that revolutionary.
If you go to their website you can find out more about how it works and if you chip in with a donation, you get your name printed in the book, the list in this book being almost as long as the stories themselves.
Still, an interesting experiment but I think selfpublishing via the Kindle is far more revolutionary,

Not the best work from Tibor Fischer but a wellmade book and at least one of the stories was fun.
That said, it takes aboutminutes to read so if you love book design you'll be buying this more for the tactile object of the book rather than the content.
For anyone else, you have to ask yourself if paying seven quid forpages is worth it or not for me, not really.
In most cases, its striking how books provide the reader with hours of entertainment and/or learning, often at a very low cost.
Im afraid though the generalisation doesnt apply in this case, These two stories are so short that together they dont take more than aboutminutes to read, The Kindle download cost less than, but even at that, this book didnt feel like value for money,

I decided to download it forreasons, Decades ago I read Tibor Fischers book Under the Frog, a black comedy sent during theHungarian Revolution, I thought that was hilarious, albeit I read it as a young man, In addition, I was attracted to the premise of the second of these stories, Possibly Forty Ships, in which an old man who participated in the Trojan War tells a young warrior the “true story” of the conflict.
Unfortunately the story failed to deliver, Its obviously meant to be humorous, but I didnt find it funny in the slightest, I get the point he was making in the end actually the author spells it out for us but I didnt think it saved the story.


Crushed Mexican Spiders was better, in my opinion, It seemed to begin as a sour tirade against life in London, but I liked the way it developed, In this case the reader can interpret the story whichever way he or she wants, Not everyone experiences the life they had once hoped for, and for people in that category, a city can be a pitiless place.


Three for Crushed Mexican Spiders and one star for Possibly Forty Ships,

Loved Crushed Mexican Spiders but found Possibly Forty Ships really dull, Two short stories. Crushed Mexican Spiders is a clever pastiche of Kafka transplanted into thest Century, Possibly Forty Ships gets thestar rating though, A fantastically rude and very funny retelling of the Trojan war, Much shorter than the version in the Aeneid and a lot more fun, PFS.
CMS.Could've been better without all of the unnecessary lewd jokes,
I didn't get any of the stories, . . A very quick effort from Fischer, Two extremely short stories. Too short really, to make any kind of impression, Whatayagonnado Ok . So firstly I think I should say I'm not sure if these two short stories should actually constitute a book, however whether they do or not they are very much worth reading.
Crushed Mexican Spiders is a interesting piece about identity, and the loss of it in a large city like London, I think this was the story I liked least of all, mainly because it felt oddly unfinished, I was left feeling unsatisfied whom I had completed it, this may however be the author's intention, The brilliant description of doormen as 'an earpiece that had somehow grown a moron' does pretty much make up for any failings I found in the story.
Possibly Forty Ships is both a story about the truth of, what we think of as, the Trojan War and also a piece about the nature of truth.
This had a rather satisfying moral, basically the cliche that 'history is written by the victors', and covers similar ground to the concepts explored in Bernard Cornwell's Winter King trilogy.
Some of the 'truths' we learn are startling and others are comical, but ultimatly the story seems quite dark, The appearance of any new work by Tibor Fischer is a cause for celebration, Here, are two dazzling new stories that show why he is so admired, The first, Crushed Mexican Spiders, is classic Fischer, Don't be fooled by the title: the poet laureate of London grime is on home ground as a women returns home to discover the key to her Brixton flat no longer works.
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Haunting images and crisp oneliners are about all that link it with the second tale, Possibly Forty Ships, the true story of the Trojan War.
In a scene straight out of a Tarantino movie, an old man is being tortured, pressed to reveal how the greatest legend of all really happened.
Let's just say it bears scant resemblance to Homer: 'If you see war as a few ships sinking in the middle of the waves, a few dozen warriors in armour, frankly not as gleaming as it could be, being welcomed wholeheartedly by the water, far, far away from Troy, if you see that as war, then it was a war.
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The stories are published in a beautiful small hardback edition, each one illustrated by the work of the acclaimed Czech photographer Hana Vojáková.
The book has two front covers: read one way you're in south London at night turn it over and youre being burned by the harsh glare of Mediterranean sunlight.
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