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Ruin #1
Sand and Ruin and Gold
Once upon a time...that’s how the old stories always begin.
Once upon a time there was a king of a fallen kingdom. He was just and he was beloved. Or so the numbers said. One day, he gathered together the greatest, wisest minds in all the land — not sorcerers, but scientists — and he bade them fashion him a son. A prince. A perfect prince to embody his father’s legacy.
The scientists each brought the prince a beauty, strength, ambition, intellect, pride. But they must have forgotten something because when he saw the mermaids dance at the Cirque de la Mer, he ran away to join them.
For a year, he trained them, performed with them, thought he was happy. For a year he thought he was free. But then Nerites A merman who refused to be tamed. A captive from another kingdom. A beast in a glass cage.
The old stories always end with happy ever after. But this isn’t one of the old stories. This is a story of princes and monsters.
Word 10,200; page 39
Once upon a time there was a king of a fallen kingdom. He was just and he was beloved. Or so the numbers said. One day, he gathered together the greatest, wisest minds in all the land — not sorcerers, but scientists — and he bade them fashion him a son. A prince. A perfect prince to embody his father’s legacy.
The scientists each brought the prince a beauty, strength, ambition, intellect, pride. But they must have forgotten something because when he saw the mermaids dance at the Cirque de la Mer, he ran away to join them.
For a year, he trained them, performed with them, thought he was happy. For a year he thought he was free. But then Nerites A merman who refused to be tamed. A captive from another kingdom. A beast in a glass cage.
The old stories always end with happy ever after. But this isn’t one of the old stories. This is a story of princes and monsters.
Word 10,200; page 39
39 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 22, 2014
6 people are currently reading
1291 people want to read
About the author
Alexis Hall
56 books15k followersOne of those intricate British queers.
Please note: I don’t read / reply to DMs. If you would like to get in touch, the best way is via email which you can find in the contact section on my website <3
Please note: I don’t read / reply to DMs. If you would like to get in touch, the best way is via email which you can find in the contact section on my website <3
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 194 reviews
February 27, 2015
RIP, mr. nimoy.
28 august, 2014
my dearest AJH,
we've spoken a lot about stories. about how they work, and what they're for, and about the pieces of ourselves that can end up in the words we write.
i told you about a woman who loved me, once, and how i honored her in the stories i wrote. you told me about the old wound you'd finally found a way to heal in the pages of a novel you wrote about coming home.
writing is both an external and internal thing, isn't it—about the inside and the outside—and most of the time, none of it has any meaning without someone else coming along to see which pieces of themselves fit into what you've written.
we spent a lot of time, you and i, trading our writing. trading our pieces.
and then you wrote me a story.
in the months since i first got to read it, i've tried to write a review exactly seven different times.
each time, i spent all this energy going through examples of stories i've experienced—in films, or songs, or novels—which had touched me in the same way.
stories that had pieces of myself in them, too.
the mechanics are simple, and it's what i both love and hate about MM as a genre: when i recognize myself inside a story, the story becomes mine, somehow—and for a time i live that story like it's actually my life.
sometimes it's subtle. sometimes it's the faintest hint of an idea.
but once i recognize it, i never forget it.
ever.
reading this story was like reading a diary.
you did it on purpose. and you did it for me.
i told you how i sometimes feel invisible, when i read books that are supposed to be about me—supposedly about people like me—but find that they're not about me or even for me at all.
so you wrote me this:
i told you about the time i wrote a story about an assassin to say goodbye to a friend. so you wrote me this, too:
and when i complained, sick to death of shitty novels, about the scenes of endless, pointless, stultifyingly vapid conversation that are a hallmark of bad romantic fiction...
you wrote me a romance with not a single word of dialogue in it at all.
not. one.
because you knew it would make me laugh.
and laugh i did.
not least because you also paid me the highest tribute i've received in my short career.
you turned your considerable talents—among which the ability to capture the voice and the cadence of a particular type of person to lend authenticity to each of the stories you tell—towards writing a thing in the style of yours truly: a right incorrigible motherfucker of a julio alexi genao, first of his name.
short sentences. punchy paragraphs. em-dashed subjunctive clauses and everything.
like a glorious badass.
and—oh, how it works. it's me, and it's you, and it works.
it's beautiful.
kinetic, musical, haunting, violent, heartbreaking, and relentlessly beautiful.
and, in a way i've never before experienced to this extent—mine.
...and so do we.
i know a lot of creative people.
some are my friends. some are my family. and once upon a time, some of them were my lovers, too.
i am 37 years old as of this writing, and i can tell you that i have never, ever, in the span of my life to date, received a gift this personal and this magical.
nobody has ever written me a story before.
until now.
until this story.
the tales we tell that endure do so because—despite the aliens, the gangsters, and even the mermen—they're always about us.
we can all recognize ourselves in the stories we consume, and in that way, we live forever.
across generations, and even different versions of the same tale.
i thank you with everything in me. and i promise to return the favor, one day.
to surprise you with it, like you surprised me.
and to share it with other people as you have, so that they too may feel as deeply seen.
hopefully you will come to the last line of that work the way i came to the last line of this one:
full of joy, and wonder, and gratitude.
just...
...maybe with not so much of the helpless blubbering, tho.
thank you.
i remain—
your friend,
JAG
28 august, 2014
my dearest AJH,
we've spoken a lot about stories. about how they work, and what they're for, and about the pieces of ourselves that can end up in the words we write.
i told you about a woman who loved me, once, and how i honored her in the stories i wrote. you told me about the old wound you'd finally found a way to heal in the pages of a novel you wrote about coming home.
writing is both an external and internal thing, isn't it—about the inside and the outside—and most of the time, none of it has any meaning without someone else coming along to see which pieces of themselves fit into what you've written.
we spent a lot of time, you and i, trading our writing. trading our pieces.
and then you wrote me a story.
in the months since i first got to read it, i've tried to write a review exactly seven different times.
each time, i spent all this energy going through examples of stories i've experienced—in films, or songs, or novels—which had touched me in the same way.
stories that had pieces of myself in them, too.
the mechanics are simple, and it's what i both love and hate about MM as a genre: when i recognize myself inside a story, the story becomes mine, somehow—and for a time i live that story like it's actually my life.
sometimes it's subtle. sometimes it's the faintest hint of an idea.
but once i recognize it, i never forget it.
ever.
reading this story was like reading a diary.
you did it on purpose. and you did it for me.
i told you how i sometimes feel invisible, when i read books that are supposed to be about me—supposedly about people like me—but find that they're not about me or even for me at all.
so you wrote me this:
I felt, in some way, quite deeply seen.
i told you about the time i wrote a story about an assassin to say goodbye to a friend. so you wrote me this, too:
Sometimes I stared into the pixels that were his eyes, looking for the loss of me.
and when i complained, sick to death of shitty novels, about the scenes of endless, pointless, stultifyingly vapid conversation that are a hallmark of bad romantic fiction...
you wrote me a romance with not a single word of dialogue in it at all.
not. one.
because you knew it would make me laugh.
and laugh i did.
not least because you also paid me the highest tribute i've received in my short career.
you turned your considerable talents—among which the ability to capture the voice and the cadence of a particular type of person to lend authenticity to each of the stories you tell—towards writing a thing in the style of yours truly: a right incorrigible motherfucker of a julio alexi genao, first of his name.
short sentences. punchy paragraphs. em-dashed subjunctive clauses and everything.
like a glorious badass.
and—oh, how it works. it's me, and it's you, and it works.
it's beautiful.
kinetic, musical, haunting, violent, heartbreaking, and relentlessly beautiful.
and, in a way i've never before experienced to this extent—mine.
They like to tell stories by their fires, stories, I like to imagine, that are older than the old world, stories about things that never change or fade away.
...and so do we.
i know a lot of creative people.
some are my friends. some are my family. and once upon a time, some of them were my lovers, too.
i am 37 years old as of this writing, and i can tell you that i have never, ever, in the span of my life to date, received a gift this personal and this magical.
nobody has ever written me a story before.
until now.
until this story.
the tales we tell that endure do so because—despite the aliens, the gangsters, and even the mermen—they're always about us.
we can all recognize ourselves in the stories we consume, and in that way, we live forever.
across generations, and even different versions of the same tale.
i thank you with everything in me. and i promise to return the favor, one day.
to surprise you with it, like you surprised me.
and to share it with other people as you have, so that they too may feel as deeply seen.
hopefully you will come to the last line of that work the way i came to the last line of this one:
full of joy, and wonder, and gratitude.
just...
...maybe with not so much of the helpless blubbering, tho.
thank you.
i remain—
your friend,
JAG
July 21, 2018
I had only questions, uncertainties, and shame. A kiss that was not a kiss from a man who was not a man.
Upon finding out there was going to be a new Alexis Hall book I did a (not so) little squee. Upon finding out there was going to be a new Alexis Hall book featuring merfolk, well, I squeed a lot.
Then I squeed some more.
Then I squeed some more again.
Basically I squeed so much I was in danger of squeeing myself into a state of implosion.
So today, I finally got my grubby little hands on this. It couldn't have come at a better time. I've been feeling a bit poorly and a new comfort read from Alexis Hall was just what the doctor ordered.
I hunker down with my copy of Sand and Ruin and Gold and spend approximately 47 minutes staring at the incredibly dreamsome cover before I start to read.
I'm reading. . .
But wait a dingleberrying minute!
Why are my glims feeling weird? Why is my nose tickling?
That's not supposed to happen. I'm reading an Alexis Hall story about a merman and a prince for fucks sake!
But the thing is you see, while this may have been about mythical merfolk - and a merman named Nerites and a prince in particular - the themes surrounding them were wholly relatable.
Love, loss & a yearning to belong.
Who hasn't felt one, or a combination of all three, at some point in their life? I know I have.
So I spent a very large part of my Saturday reading this short story. Frequently needing to take breaks because it became too much while at the same time it wasn't enough. Crying and feeling helpless for the Prince, Nerites, and the other merfolk. Generally I was reduced to an incomprehensible mess.
But you know what? I don't care.
Because this book.
This fucking book.
It was beautiful and perfect.
Upon finding out there was going to be a new Alexis Hall book I did a (not so) little squee. Upon finding out there was going to be a new Alexis Hall book featuring merfolk, well, I squeed a lot.
Then I squeed some more.
Then I squeed some more again.
Basically I squeed so much I was in danger of squeeing myself into a state of implosion.
So today, I finally got my grubby little hands on this. It couldn't have come at a better time. I've been feeling a bit poorly and a new comfort read from Alexis Hall was just what the doctor ordered.
I hunker down with my copy of Sand and Ruin and Gold and spend approximately 47 minutes staring at the incredibly dreamsome cover before I start to read.
I'm reading. . .
But wait a dingleberrying minute!
Why are my glims feeling weird? Why is my nose tickling?
That's not supposed to happen. I'm reading an Alexis Hall story about a merman and a prince for fucks sake!
But the thing is you see, while this may have been about mythical merfolk - and a merman named Nerites and a prince in particular - the themes surrounding them were wholly relatable.
Love, loss & a yearning to belong.
Who hasn't felt one, or a combination of all three, at some point in their life? I know I have.
So I spent a very large part of my Saturday reading this short story. Frequently needing to take breaks because it became too much while at the same time it wasn't enough. Crying and feeling helpless for the Prince, Nerites, and the other merfolk. Generally I was reduced to an incomprehensible mess.
But you know what? I don't care.
Because this book.
This fucking book.
It was beautiful and perfect.
July 25, 2016
Wow.
This somehow touched my soul.
This was like a legend. A myth. And Alexis's style really suits this. This tale is set in a sort of dystopic future but the voice in which it's told provides this unmistakable feeling of a faraway story from thousand years ago. A story told by word of mouth, in order to reach our very own ears. This tale feels like it travelled from the past, plowing through oceans of time.
I can really look at you in your eyes and say "It really works, it's really alive".
Epic.
*****
Gift from Helle, thank you!!!
This somehow touched my soul.
This was like a legend. A myth. And Alexis's style really suits this. This tale is set in a sort of dystopic future but the voice in which it's told provides this unmistakable feeling of a faraway story from thousand years ago. A story told by word of mouth, in order to reach our very own ears. This tale feels like it travelled from the past, plowing through oceans of time.
I can really look at you in your eyes and say "It really works, it's really alive".
Epic.
*****
Gift from Helle, thank you!!!
January 6, 2015
"So we live—as we always have—together, in the only way we can, at the very edges of freedom."
“... this isn’t one of the old stories.” This is the story of today and tomorrow.
This is the story of a man who hurts but can’t cry, a nameless Prince who is given a name, with the word love in it, from strangers.
This is the story of a failed design for perfection. Twisted and unwanted perfection.
It’s about lost things and found dreams.
About stolen freedom and cruelty, understanding and care.
It's beautiful and violent and unforgettable. It broke my heart. And I loved every word of it.
December 25, 2017
I didn't like the ending but I didn't hate it either.
4.5 stars rounded up because even though this story doesn't leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling, it is unforgettable and the writing is absolutely exquisite.
4.5 stars rounded up because even though this story doesn't leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling, it is unforgettable and the writing is absolutely exquisite.
October 1, 2016
Okay, so... I'm on a re-reading-my-favourite-books spree, because I just needed to read books I knew that were safe, that I would love, that would touch me.
With 'Ruin' it's the same experience as with 'Glitterland': I love it more with every read, but gosh, do I feel the bad things more, too. The agony of witnessing how the mermaids are mistreated is excruciating.
I had seen him made less than a beast. Mere object, commodity, a thing to be used. And I couldn't care anymore what I was, or what he was, or if we were different or the same.
This small story is breathtakingly beautiful and melancholic. I love it so much, there are not enough words—and never the right ones—to express how much I adore this.
You might ask,
"Is this a love story?" I'd say, "Yes, it is."
"Is this a romantic story then?" Again, I'd say, "Yes, it is."
"So, this is a romantic love story?" Here's the thing... I’d have to say, "No, it isn’t.
This is a story of princes and monsters."
Gosh, I love the blurb. It’s amazing and fits the book perfectly.
I’m sorry, I can’t tell you much more about the book. At least, nothing about the plot or the characters. That’s not me, anyway. But in this case, impossible.
I’ll tell you, though, that I loved the writing and that I loved the emotion in this book.
I had only questions, uncertainties, and shame. A kiss that was not a kiss from a man who was not a man.
For more quotes look at my updates. I had to stop myself to not quote the whole book.
As for the emotions… This is raw. Tender and subtle. Sad and beautiful. Full of power, resignation, and also hope.
Also, the dialogue in this book is remarkable.
‘Sand and Ruin and Gold’ gets all the stars from me and the cover is stunningly beautiful. .
September 20, 2014
A book to be read aloud, like a campfire ghost story, part cautionary tale, and as those things always go, part love story.
Love is terrifying, and it hurts, and never more so than when you are alone, watched closely but never seen. I'll never recognize every nuance of this book--i could read it a thousand times and find something new every time--but I'll never forget how it felt to read it this first time, in a single, dizzying-breath-stealing sitting.
Love is terrifying, and it hurts, and never more so than when you are alone, watched closely but never seen. I'll never recognize every nuance of this book--i could read it a thousand times and find something new every time--but I'll never forget how it felt to read it this first time, in a single, dizzying-breath-stealing sitting.
May 9, 2021
There are so many things I want to say about this story; but I know none of them can ever do it justice. It’s a little like making a sketch in dull pencil on a pad of notebook paper, of some painting full of vibrant color & emotion, maybe a Van Gogh, & then showing the sketch to someone who’s never seen that painting & saying, “Well, it looked kind of like that.” When you’re not even an artist.
I wish I could give this story 10 stars.
I wish I could write a poem to this story, about this story; but the story is itself a kind of poem.
I wish I could tell you what this story is about. I could say this is a masterfully crafted fairy tale set in a vague, dystopian future that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to our present. I could say it is a parable with layers & layers of meaning. I could say it is about loneliness & longing, about the unexpected faces of love, about being lost without knowing it & finding yourself in someone else’s eyes, about the pain of being every kind of “other” & the power of being seen & recognized. I could say it is about how terrifyingly easy it is to believe that others don’t feel or hurt like us because they don’t move or look or sound or think or live like us.
All of that would be true. But it barely scratches the surface. And that’s only what this story is about for ME. You have to read it, to find out what it’s about for YOU.
I can try to tell you how this story made me feel. I can say this is one most hauntingly, achingly sad & wonderful things I've ever read. That it rang me like a bell. That I loved it to the depths of my heart & soul. That it’s beautiful , but it hurts. That it’s beautiful BECAUSE it hurts.
Have you ever loved a song, even though listening to it fills you with anguish, but you can’t stop listening because it’s so beautiful, & the anguish & the beauty are all one thing? That’s what reading this story felt like.
I can tell you that this story will coax your heart to open like a flower. And, you’ll want to let it in, even though you can feel its sadness hovering just beyond the edges of your perception, before you even reach the end of the first page. I can warn you, that once inside your heart, this story will BREAK it. But then, that’s exactly what it’s meant to do.
I will also say this, because I just have to. That this author, this writer, this man who is on record saying he has problems writing emotionally, when he chooses to do so has the most incredible gift for evoking empathy that I have ever seen. It’s like: Imagine you could take a powerful emotion, grief, for example, boil it down to its most concentrated essence, dry it & grind it to a fine powder, then mix it with your tears & a few drops of your blood. Imagine if you could then dip a paintbrush into that medium & paint a picture with it, only it would be a picture made out of words & it would be a picture people would feel, instead of see: A story. Imagine if those words possessed the power to invoke the grief they were made from. So that, in anyone else who read the words, that feeling would be recreated in all its original intensity. That grief, born in someone else, would fill the reader’s heart & in that moment there would be no divider between what the reader felt, & what the author felt, & what the character in the story felt, they would all be one magnificent, hurting, unbearable, wonderful thing.
Yeah. That. THAT, is what this author can do with words. That's what this story does.
So, though I may hide my face for the hyperbole of this review later, while I have the guts to say this, I am going to:
I think this story is beautiful.
I think it’s perfect.
I think it’s a freaking masterpiece.
And, okay, go ahead & laugh, but right at this moment I kind of think Alexis Hall should rule the world :-)
Um, & oh yeah: I guess I should add that this author is a very dear friend. If that's not already obvious;-) That has nothing to do with how great this story is. But give that whatever consideration you wish, with regard to this review :-)
I wish I could give this story 10 stars.
I wish I could write a poem to this story, about this story; but the story is itself a kind of poem.
I wish I could tell you what this story is about. I could say this is a masterfully crafted fairy tale set in a vague, dystopian future that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to our present. I could say it is a parable with layers & layers of meaning. I could say it is about loneliness & longing, about the unexpected faces of love, about being lost without knowing it & finding yourself in someone else’s eyes, about the pain of being every kind of “other” & the power of being seen & recognized. I could say it is about how terrifyingly easy it is to believe that others don’t feel or hurt like us because they don’t move or look or sound or think or live like us.
All of that would be true. But it barely scratches the surface. And that’s only what this story is about for ME. You have to read it, to find out what it’s about for YOU.
I can try to tell you how this story made me feel. I can say this is one most hauntingly, achingly sad & wonderful things I've ever read. That it rang me like a bell. That I loved it to the depths of my heart & soul. That it’s beautiful , but it hurts. That it’s beautiful BECAUSE it hurts.
Have you ever loved a song, even though listening to it fills you with anguish, but you can’t stop listening because it’s so beautiful, & the anguish & the beauty are all one thing? That’s what reading this story felt like.
I can tell you that this story will coax your heart to open like a flower. And, you’ll want to let it in, even though you can feel its sadness hovering just beyond the edges of your perception, before you even reach the end of the first page. I can warn you, that once inside your heart, this story will BREAK it. But then, that’s exactly what it’s meant to do.
I will also say this, because I just have to. That this author, this writer, this man who is on record saying he has problems writing emotionally, when he chooses to do so has the most incredible gift for evoking empathy that I have ever seen. It’s like: Imagine you could take a powerful emotion, grief, for example, boil it down to its most concentrated essence, dry it & grind it to a fine powder, then mix it with your tears & a few drops of your blood. Imagine if you could then dip a paintbrush into that medium & paint a picture with it, only it would be a picture made out of words & it would be a picture people would feel, instead of see: A story. Imagine if those words possessed the power to invoke the grief they were made from. So that, in anyone else who read the words, that feeling would be recreated in all its original intensity. That grief, born in someone else, would fill the reader’s heart & in that moment there would be no divider between what the reader felt, & what the author felt, & what the character in the story felt, they would all be one magnificent, hurting, unbearable, wonderful thing.
Yeah. That. THAT, is what this author can do with words. That's what this story does.
So, though I may hide my face for the hyperbole of this review later, while I have the guts to say this, I am going to:
I think this story is beautiful.
I think it’s perfect.
I think it’s a freaking masterpiece.
And, okay, go ahead & laugh, but right at this moment I kind of think Alexis Hall should rule the world :-)
Um, & oh yeah: I guess I should add that this author is a very dear friend. If that's not already obvious;-) That has nothing to do with how great this story is. But give that whatever consideration you wish, with regard to this review :-)
April 5, 2019
I didn't expect my thoughts to spiral to the place where they went. I legit had an existential crisis after reading this short story. For 3 hours I tried to hold back my tears, teeth gritted and eyes glaring at the same spot, willing away the flood. Before work, on the bus, at 8 a.m. There's nothing better than when you try to explain to your boss that you suddenly developed an allergic reaction to "something", thankfully I was able to escape to the ladies room to fix my make-up before she saw me. lol
I don't suppose the author intended for me to have these thoughts and I don't want to disclose them here because they sound so silly coming out of my mouth. But just to give you an idea, I wanted to pack my things, quit my job, and walk to the end of the world. Most readers probably had a different experience with this book.
This book is golden! Peace! :*
I don't suppose the author intended for me to have these thoughts and I don't want to disclose them here because they sound so silly coming out of my mouth. But just to give you an idea, I wanted to pack my things, quit my job, and walk to the end of the world. Most readers probably had a different experience with this book.
This book is golden! Peace! :*
February 24, 2015
Once upon a time there was a king of a fallen kingdom… this is the beginning of an exceptional short story that tugged at my heartstrings. A brilliantly written, perfect story, so sad and hauntingly beautiful, a masterpiece that will stick with me a long time. Yes, reading it did hurt but simultaneously it touched my soul deeply.
I always loved fairytales… tales of enchanted castles and haunted places… I grew up with tales from Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers. The history of my country is interwoven with those old tales. When I was little my mom read them to me… and when I got older we used to sit at campfires and tell us those old fairytales again and again.
And then, decades later… my dear friend Mel comes along and recommends Alexis wonderful tale from a prince and a merman to me, two different creatures who can admire one another from afar, but who were never meant to live in the same world...
I loved how Alexis describes Nerites, the merman. He’s a predator, a wild creature, powerful, a beast, unpredictable, sad and lonely…. and held in captivity… in a glass cage… trained to perform for the amusement of humans. The nameless prince who hurts but can’t cry is determined to give Nerites his freedom.
Without really thinking about it, simply wanting to calm him, I put my palm against the glass.
He stilled the moment he saw me do it.
Seconds passed, enough of them to make me feel foolish standing there in the dark with my hand outstretched.
And then he surged towards me—I was sufficiently unnerved to ascribe desperation to a movement born of simple agitation—and he covered my palm with his.
I don’t know how long we stood there, hand-to-hand across a panel of touch-warmed glass.
I took the memory of his eyes with me when I left.
The writing style is just stunning. I’ve never read a first person narrative without any dialogue and I didn’t miss it, not one bit. The tale of the prince and the Mer Nerites and their bittersweet fate kept me awake all night and the old song 'Es waren 2 Königskinder' came to my mind, the tale of Hero and Leander from the Greek mythology.
WEs waren zwei Königskinder,
die hatten einander so lieb,
sie konnten zusammen nicht kommen,
das Wasser war viel zu tief.
"Herzliebster, kannst du nicht schwimmen?
Herzlieb, schwimm herüber zu mir!
Zwei Kerzen will ich hier anzünden,
und die sollen leuchten dir."
Sand and Ruin and Gold was stunning, achingly beautiful and I loved every word. This little gem will get a top place on my all time favorites book shelf.
If prince Graih ny marrey is still waiting for his merman?
October 30, 2014
Every behavior, instinct, or stifling of, every sense of regret, hope and loneliness are me. They’re me. And they’re you.
No matter how you slice it, shame and degradation and ignorant superiority are selfish and painful. No matter how pretty the intent, the disgust and scars are there, breathing.
Don’t force me to be what you think you see, what you want to see, what your own irrational fear forces you to see instead of me.
No one should have to touch through glass. We don’t need the glass. Why can’t the rest of them see that?
Those people that wonder why I, or anyone, is nakedly struck to the core when someone is made to feel they aren’t seen, that they’re discarded, trashed, not worth the love and freedom and heart, well… read this and maybe you’ll finally understand. And more. It doesn’t have to hurt. It doesn’t hurt.
Simply because you didn’t teach me something, didn’t think or didn’t want to teach me, that doesn’t mean the heart doesn’t find a way. It does.
The boundaries of our belonging are too frayed, too uncertain, and our worlds meet only at the limits of my body. So we live – as we always have – together, in the only way we can, at the very edges of freedom.
This is the truth for many. I want it to be a lie, only an unsettling dream, a relic we can’t even conjure let alone touch.
If forty pages can lay everything out to raw bare, imagine what a gesture, a word of understanding, appreciation, acknowledgment, of love, can do.
Forty pages of a lifelong web of growth, failure, forgiveness, time and love.
No matter how you slice it, shame and degradation and ignorant superiority are selfish and painful. No matter how pretty the intent, the disgust and scars are there, breathing.
Don’t force me to be what you think you see, what you want to see, what your own irrational fear forces you to see instead of me.
No one should have to touch through glass. We don’t need the glass. Why can’t the rest of them see that?
Those people that wonder why I, or anyone, is nakedly struck to the core when someone is made to feel they aren’t seen, that they’re discarded, trashed, not worth the love and freedom and heart, well… read this and maybe you’ll finally understand. And more. It doesn’t have to hurt. It doesn’t hurt.
Simply because you didn’t teach me something, didn’t think or didn’t want to teach me, that doesn’t mean the heart doesn’t find a way. It does.
The boundaries of our belonging are too frayed, too uncertain, and our worlds meet only at the limits of my body. So we live – as we always have – together, in the only way we can, at the very edges of freedom.
This is the truth for many. I want it to be a lie, only an unsettling dream, a relic we can’t even conjure let alone touch.
If forty pages can lay everything out to raw bare, imagine what a gesture, a word of understanding, appreciation, acknowledgment, of love, can do.
Forty pages of a lifelong web of growth, failure, forgiveness, time and love.
September 12, 2020
This was beautiful, but so very sad… Alexis Hall is an amazing storyteller.
December 10, 2014
I found this to be such a sad and touching short story.
It is a romance, but not a happily ever after. There really can't be given the circumstances. But you deeply feel the emotion behind the yearning that the two main characters feel to be as one.
The narrator of the story is the genetically-engineered, runaway sun of the King. I'm still not sure precisely what all of that had to do with how the story unfolded, but ok, let's go with that.
He ran away years ago and joined the circus. The Cirque de la Mer, to be precise, where he trains and performs with the merfolk on display there.
He's content with his life and has learned what to expect of the merfolk, until the arrival of a new merman named Nerites, whose behavior is much different than the other merfolk. Color our narrator intrigued, if not more than a bit fearful as well.
Through several interactions between the king's son and Nerites, it becomes obvious that Nerites is not simply a simple animal, eager to perform tricks for scraps of fish.
The story is fairly brutal in the way that the merfolk treat one another and although their captors do care for them, it's obvious that the merfolk are regarded as merely dolphins that vaguely look human. Wild creatures of limited intelligence to be trained.
Nerites plays along for a while, then after suffering a humiliation that most sentient creatures would consider humiliating and unforgivable, he lashes out in the most deadly manner imaginable.
The king's son is unable to sit back and leave Nerites to whatever fate that the owners of Cirque de la Mer decide, so he runs away again -- but this time with Nerites in tow.
As the story concludes, both of our heroes still live, but not the shared life together that both of them long for. *sigh*
4 sad, lonely little stars.
** This book was provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley for a fair, unbiased review. **
It is a romance, but not a happily ever after. There really can't be given the circumstances. But you deeply feel the emotion behind the yearning that the two main characters feel to be as one.
The narrator of the story is the genetically-engineered, runaway sun of the King. I'm still not sure precisely what all of that had to do with how the story unfolded, but ok, let's go with that.
He ran away years ago and joined the circus. The Cirque de la Mer, to be precise, where he trains and performs with the merfolk on display there.
He's content with his life and has learned what to expect of the merfolk, until the arrival of a new merman named Nerites, whose behavior is much different than the other merfolk. Color our narrator intrigued, if not more than a bit fearful as well.
Through several interactions between the king's son and Nerites, it becomes obvious that Nerites is not simply a simple animal, eager to perform tricks for scraps of fish.
The story is fairly brutal in the way that the merfolk treat one another and although their captors do care for them, it's obvious that the merfolk are regarded as merely dolphins that vaguely look human. Wild creatures of limited intelligence to be trained.
Nerites plays along for a while, then after suffering a humiliation that most sentient creatures would consider humiliating and unforgivable, he lashes out in the most deadly manner imaginable.
The king's son is unable to sit back and leave Nerites to whatever fate that the owners of Cirque de la Mer decide, so he runs away again -- but this time with Nerites in tow.
As the story concludes, both of our heroes still live, but not the shared life together that both of them long for. *sigh*
4 sad, lonely little stars.
** This book was provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley for a fair, unbiased review. **
January 4, 2015
It'waz a fishy tale, but a Beautiful fishy tale it'waz. But ultimately it was a story about Love.
There are only a few author's whom books I read...that no matter what they write about, what genre, I will read it....Alexis Hall is one of those author's for ME.
He's writing is exquisite, Sand and Ruin and Gold was no exception.
LOVED IT!!
October 17, 2022
Beautiful
Elusive like glimmers of thought I get sometimes and when I try to grab them they escape and fly away. And the more I try, the more they flirt with me staying just far enough away to keep me wanting and trying.
Elusive like glimmers of thought I get sometimes and when I try to grab them they escape and fly away. And the more I try, the more they flirt with me staying just far enough away to keep me wanting and trying.
Capturing beauty
Using it
Making it ugly
Wanting – always the wanting
Were loving means,
letting go,
freeing the beautiful
in spite of the loneliness
October 22, 2014
**ARC courtesy of Riptide Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**
Not my usual story to read - fantasy, but I´m so glad I read it!
Because this one is utterly beautiful with layers of meaning a meaning that hurts that touches your soul… this book is about feeling helpless, about stolen freedom with touches of hope, but also about caring and acknowledgment of emotions!
A tale of a Mermen and a Prince! I loved every word of it. HR!!
Thanks so muchMel for the rec! ;)
Not my usual story to read - fantasy, but I´m so glad I read it!
Because this one is utterly beautiful with layers of meaning a meaning that hurts that touches your soul… this book is about feeling helpless, about stolen freedom with touches of hope, but also about caring and acknowledgment of emotions!
A tale of a Mermen and a Prince! I loved every word of it. HR!!
Thanks so muchMel for the rec! ;)
September 22, 2014
I partially grew up in Ireland and Germany, where they take their folk stories at lot more seriously than we do, where sailors went on wild journeys and met fantastic creatures, where reality and fantasy met in harmony.
Stories that were told aloud around a fire for children to hear, embellished with the personal thoughts of their parents and grandparents. Stories designed to spark a desire to embrace life and celebrate it's differences,
This story is a folk tale for the 21st Century and it's beautiful.
Stories that were told aloud around a fire for children to hear, embellished with the personal thoughts of their parents and grandparents. Stories designed to spark a desire to embrace life and celebrate it's differences,
This story is a folk tale for the 21st Century and it's beautiful.
July 10, 2015
This is quite a masterpiece. Despite being short and abstract, this story is deep and thought-provoking. Unique.
My only complaint - I couldn't get enough. Wish there were a sequel.
***4.5 stars***
September 21, 2014
Outstanding!
It's not possible to review this book. Nothing can be said that will do it justice. It's beautifully written, completely tragic, nothing I expected, and everything perfect. Poetic. I'll read it 1,000,000 times, and never read it the same, or enough.
It's not possible to review this book. Nothing can be said that will do it justice. It's beautifully written, completely tragic, nothing I expected, and everything perfect. Poetic. I'll read it 1,000,000 times, and never read it the same, or enough.
September 22, 2014
This was stunning, achingly beautiful..
And the last 2 paragraphs just about killed me...
And the last 2 paragraphs just about killed me...
April 17, 2022
Too beautiful for words. Too sad for words. And far too short...because there aren't enough words to contain it.
June 10, 2016
Alexis Hall is an enigma, a enjoyable enigma, but an enigma nevertheless. You never know what you will get when he publishes his next work. The only thing that can be guaranteed is that it will be wonderful.
'Sand and Ruin and Gold' is thirty-nine pages of such wonder. This is a prime example of literature that should not be marketed in a minority genre, but out there to be enjoyed by all. A postmodern onion is the easiest way to refer to it. The layers in this short story are many, and whatever time you spend reading it, I guarantee you will spend more time thinking about what you have read. My review is just one reading I could have written a totally different interpretation, and it would still have worked.
This short story is entirely in the first person with no dialogue. It is a dystopian tale where inevitably man has turned his back on nature and retreated to cities after an apocalyptic event. The politician in charge of this world orders scientists create a son for him, genetically created. This son, now young man, created in his father's image and to his father's specifications should have been complete. However, as a child on a visit with his nurse to the Cirque de Mer, he feels something is missing in himself. The cirque features captive Mer people, the only beings whose names we are told. This in itself is ironic because the names are given to them by captors, so we still don't know any real names in this story. The son runs away to the circus, several times, confusing his father who thought him, as ordered, 'flawless'...
How many children have had their fathers thinking them flawed because they believed differently, thought differently or loved differently? This could also be the start of a nature versus nurture argument that we are more than the sum of our genetic make up. Eventually, at nineteen the son runs away to the cirque and doesn't return. There he learns how to care for the Mer people and has no contact outside the aquarium complex. He reveals how when seeing a picture of his father in a newspaper he,
This was one of many phrases which broke my heart.
Much of this story can also be seen as a tract against keeping animals in captivity. Intelligent beings that we 'train' and condition to perform for the laughter and amusement of humans.
The indignities and horrors of this are beautifully described and strike at the heart of what it is to be a sentient being. There are too many cruel ironies to cover in one review, but there is a passage where the trainers submit the beautiful, monstrous merman 'Nerites', to the indignities of having his sperm extracted for a breeding programme.
The bitter irony of this is paramount, the trainers feel motivated by altruism and a sense of superiority, calling it conservation. They never for a moment consider the rights or dignity of the Mer people they claim to be saving. This, while the Cirque is surrounded by examples of the destruction human kind has wrought on their own species. The final indignity for this merman is having the narrator, who is truly connecting with Nerites, observing this process.
This author retains his masterful almost gleeful use of language and alliteration to great effect,
then names the Son at the end of the story in Manx Gaelic, which had me squealing like a fan girl when I worked out the meaning.
Alexis Hall also manages to create a very 'romantic' moment for two beings who cannot verbally communicate, or survive in each others' worlds. For this, he uses an intertextual moment, which will be familiar to all followers of Star Trek,
This short story is as non-traditional in its execution as the love story within. It breaks open and exposes the pain of the invisible. Those not seen by family or the strangers who interact with them everyday. It reveals how the pain of being misunderstood and having your needs ignored can be as evil and deadly, as being openly abused. How many of us smile in these situations but have a smile that is,
I will end this review with an example of one of the saddest lines, and the most tragically romantic.
This phrase made me ache with unshed tears of my own. But at the end...happy for now.
ADDITIONAL REVIEW FOR AAR (8th June 2016) www.likesbooks.com/blog/?p=19206
I guarantee you will not read another story quite like this. It is a perfectly crafted tale. Your heart will break though there is no dialogue, no sex, no physical touching. I have read this story many times and it never fails to move me. There are nuances to this story that astound me. The writing is exquisite and inspires me to do better in my own written work.
'Sand and Ruin and Gold' is thirty-nine pages of such wonder. This is a prime example of literature that should not be marketed in a minority genre, but out there to be enjoyed by all. A postmodern onion is the easiest way to refer to it. The layers in this short story are many, and whatever time you spend reading it, I guarantee you will spend more time thinking about what you have read. My review is just one reading I could have written a totally different interpretation, and it would still have worked.
This short story is entirely in the first person with no dialogue. It is a dystopian tale where inevitably man has turned his back on nature and retreated to cities after an apocalyptic event. The politician in charge of this world orders scientists create a son for him, genetically created. This son, now young man, created in his father's image and to his father's specifications should have been complete. However, as a child on a visit with his nurse to the Cirque de Mer, he feels something is missing in himself. The cirque features captive Mer people, the only beings whose names we are told. This in itself is ironic because the names are given to them by captors, so we still don't know any real names in this story. The son runs away to the circus, several times, confusing his father who thought him, as ordered, 'flawless'...
I was. I am. Everything he coded into me is there. Everything that should have made me just like him. But something got into my heart that day at the cirque. A piece of grit, love or beauty or hope. Words we didn't use so much anymore.
How many children have had their fathers thinking them flawed because they believed differently, thought differently or loved differently? This could also be the start of a nature versus nurture argument that we are more than the sum of our genetic make up. Eventually, at nineteen the son runs away to the cirque and doesn't return. There he learns how to care for the Mer people and has no contact outside the aquarium complex. He reveals how when seeing a picture of his father in a newspaper he,
...stared into the pixels that were his eyes, looking for loss of me. I never found it.
This was one of many phrases which broke my heart.
Much of this story can also be seen as a tract against keeping animals in captivity. Intelligent beings that we 'train' and condition to perform for the laughter and amusement of humans.
The indignities and horrors of this are beautifully described and strike at the heart of what it is to be a sentient being. There are too many cruel ironies to cover in one review, but there is a passage where the trainers submit the beautiful, monstrous merman 'Nerites', to the indignities of having his sperm extracted for a breeding programme.
The bitter irony of this is paramount, the trainers feel motivated by altruism and a sense of superiority, calling it conservation. They never for a moment consider the rights or dignity of the Mer people they claim to be saving. This, while the Cirque is surrounded by examples of the destruction human kind has wrought on their own species. The final indignity for this merman is having the narrator, who is truly connecting with Nerites, observing this process.
This author retains his masterful almost gleeful use of language and alliteration to great effect,
Everything stagnated, sweltered, sweating itself to sepia.
then names the Son at the end of the story in Manx Gaelic, which had me squealing like a fan girl when I worked out the meaning.
Alexis Hall also manages to create a very 'romantic' moment for two beings who cannot verbally communicate, or survive in each others' worlds. For this, he uses an intertextual moment, which will be familiar to all followers of Star Trek,
...and he covered my palm with his. I don't know how long we stood there, hand-to-hand across a panel of touch-warmed glass. I took the memory of his eyes with me when I left.
This short story is as non-traditional in its execution as the love story within. It breaks open and exposes the pain of the invisible. Those not seen by family or the strangers who interact with them everyday. It reveals how the pain of being misunderstood and having your needs ignored can be as evil and deadly, as being openly abused. How many of us smile in these situations but have a smile that is,
A pathetic simulacrum of happiness...
I will end this review with an example of one of the saddest lines, and the most tragically romantic.
I would weep, but my father never gave me the capability.
This phrase made me ache with unshed tears of my own. But at the end...happy for now.
And we wait. For the day I walk into the sea and he takes me in his arms, covers my mouth with his, and gives me his breath, until there's only him and me and nothing else.
ADDITIONAL REVIEW FOR AAR (8th June 2016) www.likesbooks.com/blog/?p=19206
I guarantee you will not read another story quite like this. It is a perfectly crafted tale. Your heart will break though there is no dialogue, no sex, no physical touching. I have read this story many times and it never fails to move me. There are nuances to this story that astound me. The writing is exquisite and inspires me to do better in my own written work.
June 6, 2015
This is a little short story, an unsastisfyingly perfect slice of a dystopian future with possible fantasy elements, or possibly gene engineering... you don't ever really find out what's going on. This book is a long moment, between two not-quite-human MCs, as they connect in a very deep and yet very limited way. The tone is dark, almost bitter, with humans present in a bread-and-circuses atmosphere. Our POV MC and the merman, Nerites, don't have conversations. They connect on a level of flashing moments in time - eye contacts, small gestures. Nerites is considered an animal, smart but less than human, trained by food rewards and shaping to perform for a human audience. A savage creature sometimes, not quite understandable, not quite tame. The parallels to dolphin shows and zoos are strong.
Our MC is a man in search of someplace to belong, some connection to a life that he observes and floats through most of the time. And brief moments with the mer-folk are the closest he comes to feeling real. Of all of them, Nerites is the one who holds his attention most.
This feels a bit like riding a train, stopping outside the windows of an unfamiliar building for an hour. Dramas play out, people fight, touch, move together, and their beauty is clear but their past, their motivations, their origins are unknown. And as the drama reaches a first small conclusion, the train moves on, leaving a sense of wonder and stunned fascination, a little completion, but far more questions that will never be answered. A tour-de-force of writing and imagination, but more cool and artistic than satisfying or warm.
Our MC is a man in search of someplace to belong, some connection to a life that he observes and floats through most of the time. And brief moments with the mer-folk are the closest he comes to feeling real. Of all of them, Nerites is the one who holds his attention most.
This feels a bit like riding a train, stopping outside the windows of an unfamiliar building for an hour. Dramas play out, people fight, touch, move together, and their beauty is clear but their past, their motivations, their origins are unknown. And as the drama reaches a first small conclusion, the train moves on, leaving a sense of wonder and stunned fascination, a little completion, but far more questions that will never be answered. A tour-de-force of writing and imagination, but more cool and artistic than satisfying or warm.
March 6, 2016
If you have ever seen the documentary Blackfish you will know this story well.
This book has wonderful writing, of course, being written by a very talented author. But i'm unsure of how to rate it at this moment as the documentary is so fresh in my mind that i was picturing the mermaids as orcas while reading it.
Though for anyone who hasn't watched Blackfish, i would highly recommend it.
This book has wonderful writing, of course, being written by a very talented author. But i'm unsure of how to rate it at this moment as the documentary is so fresh in my mind that i was picturing the mermaids as orcas while reading it.
Though for anyone who hasn't watched Blackfish, i would highly recommend it.
June 2, 2015
Riptide is having a Blast sale and this little gem is part of it, available for 0.99 in the period 2-6 June 2015! http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/s...
Go grab it if for some reason you haven't read it yet. It's a truly exquisite, magical love story. Beware, though, there are bound to be tears in the end.
Ok, I will some (more) time before I can review this in any coherent form.
It was beautiful and heart-breaking and unexpected and it made me cry.
It's a touching short story about love and loss and what it means to have feelings. It's powerful in its simplicity. I see it as an allegory of what it means to be human - emotions are messy and painful but they are also beautiful and strong and give meaning to life.
I don't want to talk about characters and plot because for me reading this book was not about following the fate of the characters en route to their HEA, it was all about what I felt for them. I find it amazing how many emotions Mr. Hall can stir with just a few words.
I love me some neat happy end where everybody get what they want but life usually doesn't work that way. This little whimsical fantasy story is more real than most of the contemporaries I read. And it left me sad and devastated but still dreaming of the love and happiness everyone needs/deserves in their lives.
Go grab it if for some reason you haven't read it yet. It's a truly exquisite, magical love story. Beware, though, there are bound to be tears in the end.
Ok, I will some (more) time before I can review this in any coherent form.
It was beautiful and heart-breaking and unexpected and it made me cry.
It's a touching short story about love and loss and what it means to have feelings. It's powerful in its simplicity. I see it as an allegory of what it means to be human - emotions are messy and painful but they are also beautiful and strong and give meaning to life.
I don't want to talk about characters and plot because for me reading this book was not about following the fate of the characters en route to their HEA, it was all about what I felt for them. I find it amazing how many emotions Mr. Hall can stir with just a few words.
I love me some neat happy end where everybody get what they want but life usually doesn't work that way. This little whimsical fantasy story is more real than most of the contemporaries I read. And it left me sad and devastated but still dreaming of the love and happiness everyone needs/deserves in their lives.
November 1, 2014
Vacation-Countdown-Shorty #5/19!
And again I'm sitting here lost for words. I start to type but clear it just to start all over again. (Now is the 7th time.)
I'm so stunned how much feels are in this shorty and without a single spoken word!
I feel like I've had cried 100 years and there were no more tears left.
The story won't make you feel good!
It won't make you smiling and laughing!
It will take your heart and tear it in teensy tiny pieces!
It will touch you so deep only a very few books can. And the most of them even need much more pages than this masterpiece!
****************************************************
My Vacation Countdown so far:
#1 U.S. Male ---> My Review + U.S. Male - Inside the Box ---> My Review
#2 Loser Takes All -----> My Review
#3 Test of Endurance -----> My Review
#4 When You Were Pixels -----> My Review
#5 Sand and Ruin and Gold
#6 Welcome to the Dark Side -----> My Review
Special Weird Wednesday Edition Mounted by a Monster: Werepuffer -----> My Review
#7 Quid Pro Quo -----> My Review
#8 Gaydar -----> My Review
#9 Geeking Out on 11C -----> My Review
#10 Beach Climb -----> My Review
#11 Smug the Magic Dragon -----> My Review
#12 The Lonely Drop -----> My Review
#13 The Princess & the Penis -----> My Review
Special Weird Wednesday Edition #2 Captured by Cavemen -----> My Review
#14 One of Those Days -----> My Review
#15 Make Her Howl -----> My Review
#16 (Helloween!) Ed & Fred Are... Dead -----> My Review
#17 Boo! -----> My Review
#18 Karma Bites -----> My Review
#19 Straight Frat, Gay College Jock Sex -----> My Review
February 5, 2016
This was just a beautiful story, I cannot express how such a quick read can capture your emotions so deeply. The writing is magnificent, I grabbed this after reading Mel's review, which captures this book perfectly. ❤️
September 21, 2014
A beautifully written story. Sad and haunting but with touches of hope,
September 9, 2016
oh that was absolutely beyond beautiful - I can't even begin to describe how gorgeous that book was... I have so many things to say I can't even begin. 100% perfect.
May 1, 2021
beautiful writing but so, so sad...
3,75⭐️
3,75⭐️
Displaying 1 - 30 of 194 reviews