THEM
THEM is an action adventure, with a rather dark and foreboding undertone.
While it thrives on the physical strengths of its characters, it damns the world around its characters to being weak and ignorant.
Our Hero, Devon, is an ordinary, successful, energetic business sort with a fantastic wife who fills in the proverbial gaps of his life with respect and caring. His life is simple, until he puts on some sort of special glasses he received in the mail. This moment changes his life, presumably forever. This will undoubtedly be a series, so who knows what’s going to happen to him.
The glasses enable him to surf the web, are even voice activated, which is pretty cool, and among other things, he sees people with the headset who are peculiar. Enter the world of THEM. THEM being a proper noun, the name of a specific being of sorts.
Once you get to the end of the short story, it’s clear that it’s an installment of a much, much bigger piece. I would go as far as calling this an origin piece of a super hero, if our protagonist winds up being an actual hero. If not, maybe the origins of an anti-hero. The reason why it does more than just hint at being an origin piece, is its arc. Sure, it’s beginning, middle and end format, but its focus is delivering the basis for the beings and people you’ll be running into, and getting the reader acclimated to some of the sci-fi that must be ingested; the storyline, plot and drama is starting here but about half way through you can feel it’s not meant to wrap up tightly. Also, to be honest, such a short story for such a big idea. Not meant to be completed in its hundred or so page length.
THEM is a fun piece of fiction reading and writing. Author M.G. Hardie does justice to his approach but does not take himself too seriously. He moves you through scenes of borderline torcher without forcing you to squint, because that is not the point here. We’re supposed to recognize the violence but not get bogged down in it. That plays well in the paragraphs. To add to it, where our protagonist is a simple dude with a job who is thrown into the fire of the plot, our antagonists and those of the same ilk are from, well, everywhere and nowhere. They’re not from space or other countries. Nope. They’re not demons or angels. Nope. They’re from somewhere else. Again MG doesn’t give a huge origin backstory on them. Instead, they serve their purpose for the story, with their function being to have our lead grow. The result is that THEM moves quickly and introduces us to the world being rebuilt for us through Devon’s eyes.
THEM comes with a deeper point, however. THEM are moving the structure of society, secretly, and in a way, as herders. More than a few times the human race is implied to be ignorant and basically sheep. Think of the Illuminati or any number of “secret” society’s that are supposedly the true Sheppard’s of the world. THEM is portrayed as having that sort of influence. It’s Devon’s eyes which are now open to this, but he needs to get over himself and move away from his old reality to help that old reality in any way possible. Devon is, in many ways, the chosen one, and at the same time, the everyday man, being represented here.
Although I consider THEM fun, it’s devoid of punch-lines. The work is asking for its readers to open their eyes to the world around them and see, as Devon does. The question the reader is left with is this: does Devon make the change; are his eyes finally open. It’s going to be up to the reader to decide. I for one say…yes.
While it thrives on the physical strengths of its characters, it damns the world around its characters to being weak and ignorant.
Our Hero, Devon, is an ordinary, successful, energetic business sort with a fantastic wife who fills in the proverbial gaps of his life with respect and caring. His life is simple, until he puts on some sort of special glasses he received in the mail. This moment changes his life, presumably forever. This will undoubtedly be a series, so who knows what’s going to happen to him.
The glasses enable him to surf the web, are even voice activated, which is pretty cool, and among other things, he sees people with the headset who are peculiar. Enter the world of THEM. THEM being a proper noun, the name of a specific being of sorts.
Once you get to the end of the short story, it’s clear that it’s an installment of a much, much bigger piece. I would go as far as calling this an origin piece of a super hero, if our protagonist winds up being an actual hero. If not, maybe the origins of an anti-hero. The reason why it does more than just hint at being an origin piece, is its arc. Sure, it’s beginning, middle and end format, but its focus is delivering the basis for the beings and people you’ll be running into, and getting the reader acclimated to some of the sci-fi that must be ingested; the storyline, plot and drama is starting here but about half way through you can feel it’s not meant to wrap up tightly. Also, to be honest, such a short story for such a big idea. Not meant to be completed in its hundred or so page length.
THEM is a fun piece of fiction reading and writing. Author M.G. Hardie does justice to his approach but does not take himself too seriously. He moves you through scenes of borderline torcher without forcing you to squint, because that is not the point here. We’re supposed to recognize the violence but not get bogged down in it. That plays well in the paragraphs. To add to it, where our protagonist is a simple dude with a job who is thrown into the fire of the plot, our antagonists and those of the same ilk are from, well, everywhere and nowhere. They’re not from space or other countries. Nope. They’re not demons or angels. Nope. They’re from somewhere else. Again MG doesn’t give a huge origin backstory on them. Instead, they serve their purpose for the story, with their function being to have our lead grow. The result is that THEM moves quickly and introduces us to the world being rebuilt for us through Devon’s eyes.
THEM comes with a deeper point, however. THEM are moving the structure of society, secretly, and in a way, as herders. More than a few times the human race is implied to be ignorant and basically sheep. Think of the Illuminati or any number of “secret” society’s that are supposedly the true Sheppard’s of the world. THEM is portrayed as having that sort of influence. It’s Devon’s eyes which are now open to this, but he needs to get over himself and move away from his old reality to help that old reality in any way possible. Devon is, in many ways, the chosen one, and at the same time, the everyday man, being represented here.
Although I consider THEM fun, it’s devoid of punch-lines. The work is asking for its readers to open their eyes to the world around them and see, as Devon does. The question the reader is left with is this: does Devon make the change; are his eyes finally open. It’s going to be up to the reader to decide. I for one say…yes.
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