Dean W. Scott, Something for Everyone (Kindle 2021)
This anthology contains a horror story, a sci-fi story, a love story—I love the way he says, ‘I felt I owed my wife a love story’—a little something for everyone. I knew I would love this writer when I saw the phrase ‘stygian secrets’. As there’s no overall theme, I’ll address the stories one by one.
‘Something for Everyone’ breaks your heart, a family’s first Christmas since the death of their younger brother—everyone trying to be cheerful, trying not to mention what’s missing. However, I thought switching the Voice from the brother to the mother didn’t work.
In spooky ‘Interstate’, a couple on the way to honeymoon at Niagara Falls. After stopping at a roadside horse farm for a trail ride, they keep passing the same Interstate sign over and over, and even the radio seems to have entered the Twilight Zone.
‘Changes’ is a love story from the point of view of a werewolf. The girlfriend notices he goes AWOL once a month after the new moon and finally guesses. Surprisingly, she’s cool with it. Not as smouldering as Bella and Edward Cullen, but I loved his Voice when in the persona of wolf.
In ‘Break’, a stranger walks into a bar, interacts with the regulars, the barman and barmaid try to figure him out—just a guy taking an afternoon off?
In ‘The World’s Greatest Assassin’ Nikolai is sent to solicit the ‘services’ of a wealthy American against his employer’s rival. I’m afraid I didn’t understand the ending.
‘Abeona’ is a sci-fi thriller. Alex-zander is working on terraforming the Galilean moons, while Sar-rah stayed on Mars developing the flora and fauna in the domes. Eight light years away, they’ve discovered a potentially colonisable planet, Abeona, when there’s a distress call from Alex. There’s something odd about the flora in Quadrant 43. This is a fabulous story, and I think would make a full-length novel as well as a great movie.
‘Draconia veterinarius’ flips into the fantasy genre and develops a very cute theme. Duke Labrigi looks down from his throne upon the charred body of Sir Melman, the seventh to be defeated by the dragon. In walks Dr. James Wright, veterinarian, who pledges to solve the duke’s problem. The solution, as he tells his young apprentice Stephen, is not to fight it, but to diagnose what ails the creature and treat it.
During a game of hide-and-seek, a boy locks his babysitter in the attic, saying, ‘I’m sorry’. It’s a whole other, terrifying world up there.
In ‘Reader’, third-grade teacher Barbara loves reading. She finds in the library an enigmatic old-style book which seems to have a mind of its own and has a disturbing history.
Nick is a successful doctor, but he’s been losing patients, and losing sleep. His psychiatrist believes he has ‘Imposter Syndrome’. Little does she know…
The anthology is edited to perfection, although the justified spacing leaves the words too spaced out at the ends of some paragraphs.
This collection contains a diverse assortment of themes, from different genres, even; many are especially inventive. Each story shows the same high quality of writing. I would love to read more stories by this author, and hope he writes a novel or two.
Susie Helme 
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