Seven Stories High

by Alex South

The first book in the 'Be Eclectic' series by Alex South.

Contains seven short stories:

COPY AND PASTE

"I was just about to go to the pub when it started. I had gone into the hall on my way to the front door, when I heard what sounded like a gasp behind me. I turned around and there was a man sitting on the sofa where I had just been. I jumped, of course, and walked a few steps back, then I realised the man was me, well, he looked like me. He wasn’t me; I’m me – obviously.

The man stared – he looked pale – then we said, “Who are you?” in unison, and then we said, “I’m Rob,” also in unison."

LETTERS

A teenager starts receiving mysterious letters in his locker. How did they get there? Who wrote them? And should he follow their bizarre instructions?

SEA OF MERCY

Stephen, Albert and Jack – wine smugglers and best friends, but disaster has left them lost at sea and low on food. Hunger can do terrible things to good people.

ANNIE

It's an escape into nature for Annie and Jenny, but then Jenny disappears and the woods take on a new nightmarish identity. Can Annie hold it together long enough to figure out what is going on?

TRUCKER

Sam has a band, but he also has an office job – he has to sneak out early if he's going to make the gig in time. Will his boss notice, and is he risking a good job for a stupid dream?

MULE

Steph and Jonny are almost tricked into smuggling a package into England. When they realise what's happening, they initially decide to tell the authorities, but then greed takes over as they see a chance to make money. Will they pull it off and live the dream, or will the criminals of Los Angeles do what they do best? – kill them without leaving a trace.

FREEDOM FIGHTER

Caught up in the revolution and fighting for the freedom of Egypt, Asim has become a skilled solider. He draws on all his focus as he clears another building. One slip in concentration can be the difference between being the killer or the killed.

Be eclectic.

Download and start reading.

Genres: Short Stories

51 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2012

Reviews

[Kath Middleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of seven short stories is extremely imaginative and very unusual. The endings of some are quite thought provoking and one or two left me thinking, ‘What happened there, then?’ This in itself is not a bad thing. I’m not a reader who wants to be spoon-fed a lot of pre-chewed pap. I am more than happy to re-read a good story. The first story, possibly my favourite, is Copy and Paste, which asks what would happen if one or more exact copies of you were to appear in your home? The way the author considers and resolves this is really interesting. Each of the stories had its own merits and was considered in a fairly unusual way.

The stories contained here are written in an engaging and mature style and take rather unusual directions. I have never read anything else of Alex South’s though I understand this is one of a proposed series of short story collections. I highly recommend this and will look out for more by this author.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to author Alex South.)

Story 1 – copy and paste
This is a quirky little story about a boy who finds that he replicates himself every time he leaves a room! This was actually quite funny – I found myself laughing out loud at times. It was quite short, but the ideas and writing were really good! Great first story.

Story 2 – Letters
This is another funny little story about a boy who keeps finding letters in his locker written in green ink, which tell him that he is going to bring about a new world. I think my favourite line from this story was; ‘I went to Blackpool because it was the dodgiest place I knew’
So funny and so true! Blackpool is definitely dodgy! This again was quite a unique, quirky little tale that really made me laugh! There was also a little twist to the tale right at the end that I appreciated too! Great story.

Story 3 – Sea of Mercy
I didn’t really like this one. It’s very short, and it revolves around three men on a boat, and the plan of two of them to kill and eat the other to prevent starvation. There is a twist to it, and the fear of the main character is very real. A little haunting and unsettling for me I’m afraid, I’m not likely to forget it anytime soon though!

Story 4 – Annie
Story about a quite frightening vision that a girl Annie has. I’m not sure if she’s high or crazy or what! Pretty strange really. The author does have a real gift for weaving such a vivid picture in so few words though.

Story 5 – Trucker
Strange little tale about a bloke who has to skive off work to get to a rock concert that he hopes will be his big break. He runs into several problems that nearly end his dream, and comments on how nothing ever goes right for him. Not really sure what to make of this one! I suppose it’s supposed to be a bit of a sod’s law story? If things can go wrong they will.

Story 6 – Mule
Story about a couple who are given a suitcase to take on a plane. They suspect that there are drugs inside, so they open it up, find coke, and then set out to find someone to sell it to. Bit of a crazy idea really. The story was alright but I didn’t like it as much as some of the previous stories. I just didn’t really connect with the characters, and didn’t really care what happened to them.

Story 7 – Freedom Fighter
Story about a guy with a gun, who thinks people are creeping up on him? Sort of a war-esque story. Another one that I’m not really sure what to make of. This one was literally 2 pages long on my kindle fire, and I just didn’t get it at all. Not one of the better ones in this anthology.

Overall; Liked the first two stories, but the others weren’t really my thing. The author really does have a gift for writing short tales though!
7 out of 10.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be a small collection of stories with seven packed into just 51 pages but those pages really pack a lot. There's something in here for almost everyone with chilling tales of mystery with Letters and Sea of Mercy, there's realms of fantasy and make believe (and not always the nice kind) with Annie. There's a bit of light-hearted humour and an insight into different aspects of the human mind with Copy and Paste and Mule and a little something to give you back a bit of faith in humanity with Trucker and a spot of realism with Freedom Fighter. Each of the stories is really well written and thoroughly engrossing, leaving you wanting more both from the story and from the characters. While I couldn't quite bring myself to give this collection five stars (although you have no idea of the guilt I feel about that, by the way Letters and Trucker are both five star reads in my opinion), this is an utterly superb collection that will have you jumping from smiling and laughing to shuddering and hiding under the covers (all in the space of an hour...that was one weird experience I can tell you). To be honest there's nothing left for me to say other than read it!

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good short stories give a snapshot into another life, or another world. The best ones leaving you thinking long after you've read them, little niggling imaginations that you can't quite remember where they came from. It's maybe a little too early to tell if these stories have created those ripples, but there was a surprising variety in the scope of the tales, and some interestings twists and turns.

[Snufkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really refreshing read!!
Somehow more like poetry than a story, a wonderful crystallised moment like 'Annie', or an almost philosophical concept explored like 'copy and paste', it is really varied! And naturally there were ones I loved, and some which didn't do much for me (like Sea of Mercy).
My favourite was Letters, possibly because green is my favourite colour too ;)

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not usually a fan of short stories because I quite like tidy endings!! However I make a big exception for 'Copy & Paste' in particular and also for 'Letters' both of which were 'tidy enough for me' :) Enjoyed the comedy of Mule.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of seven quirky short - very short - stories, well worth a look.

[Grammar*Kitten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seven Stories High is an intriguing and somewhat eclectic mix of short stories by Alex South.

I'm not 100% sure, but perhaps the title is an indicator of how one should read the book - high.

Because if I'm honest, I just didn't like some of them. I don't even really care if some people say I'm ingorant for that, or that I 'just didnt get them. It's just my take on it - plenty of other people seem to love all of them.

That said, I really enjoyed a few of them in particular - enough to redeem the ones that I wasn't as fond of. However, the other stories, I quite enjoyed, and I will address them here in this review. One thing I noticed, even with the stories I liked, is that they were't amazingly eloquently written, but spectacular ideas executed quite well. Sometimes word ordering seems a little strange – one sentence will be ordered in a way that seems to project that the author is trying to come across as eloquent, and then the next will conversely be written in such a colloquial way that makes the reader realise that its a little pretentious. This style was a little distracting, as I found myself noticing that more than the stories themselves, at times. Which was a shame. The other thing I found a little distracting in such a complex story (Copy and Paste) was the lack of commas. When dealing with plots that can be as complex as this, you really need to know when to pause within the sentence!

'Annie', 'Trucker' and 'Freedom Fighter' were the three I didn't particularly like or get. Copy and Paste left me a little apathetic. The others I found to be brilliant in their own ways.

LETTERS
Letters suffers from less awkward turns of phrase than the first story in this collection, and in my opinion is much better. All the way through the story, the reader is kept on tenterhooks, not really knowing what is going on, how it is happening or to what end. But by the time you reach the last line, everything comes together. I’d personally say it’s a fantastic exploration of mental instability and mental illness, a very clever insight into a broken mind that needs help.

SEA OF MERCY
Sea of Mercy touches on something that really unsettles me. people eating people, or even thinking of eating people, is my major ‘horror button’. I can read about all manner of things without blinking an eye, but cannibalism? Bleurgh and yeouch all at once. It’s a clever exploration of the psychological process involved in deciding what one human being will do to survive, even at the expense of others around them. Unfortunately this story uses a little more ‘tell’ than ‘show’ in its description, which isn’t entirely to my tastes, but despite that, I enjoyed it very much. I did see what was going to happen almost immediately, unlike the unfortunate protagonist. But really, would you turn your back on a man with a knife in a scenario where two of you were plotting to kill and eat the third one? No. You just wouldn’t. It’s dog eat dog: or more accurately, man eat man. This is definitely one of my favourites in the collection. I’d love to see it developed into a full novel, or at the least a novella.

MULE
I’m not sure many people would describe this story as ‘fun’, but I certainly found it to be. It was perhaps the most well written (though not my favourite, still) and had good pacing. I enjoyed the characters and certainly the author’s wry sense of humour, especially at the end. This one is a treat worth reading the rest for.

Overall, a good attempt and a decent collection. Although I'm more enthusiastic about some of these stories than others, I'd definitely be intrigued to read more by this author.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Id like to thank Alex for giving me a copy of 'Seven Stories High', I think it's fair to say that this is unlike anything I've read before, for unusual is an understatement. As you can pretty much figure out from the title it's a collection of seven short stories. Unique, Intense and vivid stories, that make you feel pretty much freaked out and panicky from the beginning.

It leaves a lot down to the Imagination of the readers, if you skim over each story you can just shrug them off but if you sit down and actually take everything in, you can play the various scenarios in your head and its gives you those creepy shivers down your spine and your heart pounds with the anxious feelings that fill your body.

As much as I wanted to look away and calm myself from the affects each individual story had on me I was glued to the pages and lapped up every one, I couldn't look away because I wanted to find out what happened. Although some of them were left as cliffhangers which frankly I was ok with. I like some having open endings.

I think my favourite story had to be Copy and Paste. It made me think what I would do if suddenly 3 other ME's appeared? South had me questioning people's actions and put myself in these people's places to see how I'd react in their circumstances.
He provided possible reasons as to what motivates people when their in tense, confusing and frightening places. What makes people act the way they do.

His writing sets the mood for the scene well and it is very descriptive. I felt what the characters felt. Frightened? I definitely felt frightened at some point, I think especially so with Mule. When the gun shots were fired I think I even may have jumped. I heard the sound of them go off in my head, it was horrible. I also felt a range of other emotions, I identified with the characters and felt sad for a lot of them, I do think though I laughed when at the end of Mule the guy said "I want a divorce though." So would I. I can't believe he let his wife manipulate him to get what she wanted when it nearly cost them their lives. It really makes you see the control some people have over others.

I was very impressed by South's devious writing and his vivid imagination. I was hooked on these stories. They gave me that adrenaline rush whilst also making me feel out of control at the same time. Either way I read this in a matter of minutes, and I will definitely urge people to give these a shot.

I can positively say I will be reading more of this guys work in the future!

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful collection of one-of-a-kind short stories, ranging from serendipitous to macabre and all dealing with the complexity of human psychology in slice of life format. Each is deceptively simple, tightly woven and spare, allowing the point to shine brightly through. Can you tell I really enjoyed this?

In the first story, Copy and Paste, we get introduced to an original. Then reality is skewed when this guy’s carbon copy shows up and the tension builds nicely from there. But my personal favorite is Trucker; isn’t it too true that just as you think all is lost, providence provides? We follow Alex to the brink and watch him jump, following that still, small but insistent voice into the void, hoping the Universe has its nets out to catch him.

Fun and fast, sometimes creepy, I flew through the entire thing and then sat pondering the sly wisdom of the writing. You won’t have time to be bored; the stories pull you along even as you tell yourself “I’ll just read one more and then get about my business.”

POV is firmly established and the construction supports this offering of delectable appetizers with a juicy desert in the surprising plot twist at the end of each.

The flow was unimpeded save for a couple of hiccups, those being a tiny bit of confusion in Letters about which building the narrator was to go to the top of and 2 teeny typos…yes, I am a stickler for grammar. But even my picky standards simply could not dim my enthusiasm for this work. I couldn’t wait to see where the author would take me next.

Highly recommended, as there is something for everyone here and a feast for those of us who revel in variety.

[A.E. Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author sent me a copy of this, for which I'm most appreciative - it's given me an excellent slice of afternoon reading. I love short story collections, not least because you can ask a dozen people their favourite story in any such collection and if it's a good one, everyone will choose something different from everyone else, for wildly varying reasons. I can certainly see that happening with this (my favourite, for the record, was Annie, a brilliantly brief piece of peculiarity).

Alex's prose is snappy and refreshing, and stories crack along with confidence and wit. I've been reading a lot of wordy, lengthy, immersive things this week, so to have something slick and clear, which is still thoroughly imaginative and doesn't just avoid cliche, but has never heard of it, is a welcome change. Will certainly be looking out for more from this author.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of there being multiple versions of yourself is one that has fascinated writers for centuries and in the first story in this collection, Alex South makes a creditable contribution to the canon. Borges explored it in many stories, nobly The Circular Ruins, Alastair Gray had fun with it in The Spread of Ian Nichol. Even philosophers like Daniel Dennett have run with the idea. Here we have a version for the current, texting generation.

This is a welcome collection for about the same price as a glass of beer and maybe best enjoyed discussed over a glass of beer.

I look forward to reading more.

[Jonathan Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book of shorts I have read by this author and I thoroughly enjoyed them. The author has a great easy-to-read, at times almost conversational, style but it is deceptively simple; there is a lot to think about beyond the words themselves.

Almost all the stories firmly held my attention and I would be pushed to pick a favourite. Most involved excellent twists and unexpected developments. The tales are very well-written and often quite dark. There is an atmosphere of tension and dread throughout the book, particularly in 'Letters' and 'Sea of Mercy', the endings of which shocked and impressed me.

This is a great little collection which I highly recommend.

[Jess Mountifield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was given to me in return for my review. I munched through the entire collection of short stories without stopping and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Most had a slightly chilling factor to them although they can't all be classed in exactly the same genre.

There was a good variety of different characters and several had me guessing as to how they would turn out.

I think copy and paste was my favourite, although it's not easy to choose between them. I'd love to see some longer works by this author to allow him to go into some more in depth character development and plots.

[Lili · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unusual collection of thought provoking short stories; a mixed bag some very interesting and at times quite amusing. My favourite of these is “Copy and Paste”. A couple of the stories are a little too short to assimilate, however Alex South the author has a vivid imagination along with a wry sense of humour, a shame not to utilise these talents into creating a full length novel. I received this as an ebook, a gift from the author.

[Lynda Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very well written and I found no errors which earnt an extra star but I only managed 2 of these, Alex, and gave up as they're a little too fanciful for me. I prefer to read things I can believe in a little but thsee were a bit too fantasy or sci-fi-like for me.
I did prefer Letters to Copy and Paste.

[Kesha Mclean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very imaginative short stories. I have to say, there were a couple I didnt really take to but the others were really good. One of them actually got me in fits of laughter, as it reminded me of an experience I had back in my younger partying days. Good job Alex and well done x