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The Ramshead Algorithm and Other Stories

K.J. Kabza (Goodreads Author)

3.82 · Rating details · 22 ratings · 8 reviews

Ramshead Jones has a billionaire father, a dysfunctional family, and a shocking secret nestled in the hedge maze in his backyard: Earth’s only portal to hundreds of other realities. When Ramshead’s unwitting father decides to rip the hedge maze out, Ramshead is forced to use dangerous magic to move the portal before it’s destroyed, too—unless the deadly maze of other famil ...more

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Published January 16th 2018 by Pink Narcissus Press

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Mar 14, 2018 Devann rated it it was ok

Shelves: c-arcs, 2-0-star, a-adult, g-fantasy-high, g-scifi-steampunk, t-anthology

I received a free copy of this book from LibraryThing

So I made an effort to read the first few stories in this anthology, but after that I pretty much did a lot of skimming because I just could not get into it at all. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this book. I mean it's well written and there are no obvious glaring grammatical errors that I noticed, but I just could not pay attention when I was trying to read it. I think it's because I want to know what a story is about before I read it ...more

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Oct 10, 2017 Wendy S. Delmater rated it it was amazing

KJ Kabza seems to specialize in altered states, dream states, and has a range from flights of fancy to gut-wrenching terror. I have to say I really liked the black-and-white, full-page pen-and- ink illustrations, which were enticements to read on.

We begin with “The Leafsmith in Love,” a charming clockpunk story with a bit of alchemy and magic thrown in at the right places. I enjoyed it. Usually a collection starts with the best story, so I was almost prepared to be disappointed by the next one. KJ Kabza seems to specialize in altered states, dream states, and has a range from flights of fancy to gut-wrenching terror. I have to say I really liked the black-and-white, full-page pen-and- ink illustrations, which were enticements to read on.

We begin with “The Leafsmith in Love,” a charming clockpunk story with a bit of alchemy and magic thrown in at the right places. I enjoyed it. Usually a collection starts with the best story, so I was almost prepared to be disappointed by the next one. Nope. I laughed aloud with delight at “The Color of Sand.” You should buy this book for that story alone.

Didn’t think I’d like the title story, “The Ramshead Algorithm” at first, as it was set in the one place in a confusing clash of universes where our laws of physics applied, but the protagonist was soon back in our world, and dealing with a tangled mess that slowly revealed a secret past that made the first odd location make sense. It resolved in a way I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

“Night and Day” asks serious questions about whether a man’s dream-life or his human life…are real. It turns out they are intertwined and the fulcrum is someone’s second sight. Then after an illustration in which a horse has cut gems for eyes, “The Flight Stone” tells the chilling tale of an orphan girl who never wants to stop riding air horses, and will do absolutely anything to herself to keep her position.

Oooh! “Steady on Her Feet.” In this clockpunk tale the characters, the expected complications, the unexpected resolution– bright with promise and peril –left me breathless.

“The Soul in the Bell Jar” is a sort of mash-up of a gothic horror story and Frankenstein’s monster, but with animals and eccentric, wealthy relatives, told from the viewpoint of a visiting child. As I stated at the beginning of this review, Kabza excels at dream states. Such things viewed by a child certainly qualify as such.

In “Heaventide,” which is a bit of a gender-bender tale, a tribe has persons grows up to be either a man or a woman, and our protagonist has been misgendered but is being forced into the female role. S/he fights to be who s/he knows to be with every weapon available.

Laurel, the Passenger who is the POV character in “WeDon’t Talk about Death” is a companion for Allie, a Pilot who needs an alert person to be with her and anchor her when she experiences Unreality in piloting a spaceship across dimensions. They cross a war zone in the present—and for Allie—past, emotional tense. And they come out more honest on the other side.

The haunted Ghost Bikes in “All Souls Proceed” weave in and out of a Southwestern town as it yearly experiences The Day of the Dead and the wisps of the dead in between each season. This is more of a mood piece than a story, but then the subject sort of requires it.

Ah, the grand finale. The opening illustration for “You Can Take It With You” is a series of rock climbers tied together, with a wildly oversized one who seemingly jumps and takes the rest with them. That’s sort of an analogy for the story’s crappy, short-term digital afterlife. This novella (novelette? Hard to do a word count in digital form) is about how one newly-uploaded resident copes with it. “…there is no justice in a world into which everyone comes confused, isolated, and frightened—and which tries to keep everyone that way.” So they go on a quest to find justice. It’s rather like Phillip K. Dick’s Ubik meets Ready Player One.

You will treasure this collection by KJ Kabza.

RECOMMENDED ...more

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Jan 10, 2018 Melissa rated it really liked it

I got this book for free as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Now that I've gotten that out of the way..

This book was amazing. It's been a long time since I've given a book of short stories a try because I've been burned by them in the past. These stories were all so vastly different. They went from bittersweet to hopeful to freaking weird to mind blowing to so surreal that I begin to question my own reality. I can't recommend this book enough - just prepare to think to yourself ...more

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Feb 06, 2018 Ian Mathers rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017, rt

Kind of picked this one on a whim, and was actually really pleasantly surprised. Here's a place I'm sad it's taken me so long to get to these, especially now that my energy and memory are both being messed with by post-surgery recovery, because I have strong impressions of lots of these stories, but can't remember the names to refer you to them, or what have you. I do know that many of these stories sketch out surprisingly well-formed worlds in their brief lives that I would love to see many of ...more

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Dec 06, 2017 Pratibha Pandey rated it really liked it

Shelves: short-story-collection

When the very first story makes you feel mushy in a very nice way ,you have some hopes from the book. And then the author takes you on all sort of feeling rideswith views as varied as you can imagine. This book redefined Sci fic for me in a way that I can like this genre too. Every story was a delight to read the setting and still so close to real feelings and reactions. good research has been done in places and other areas are shining with brilliant writing.

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Apr 24, 2018 Maurizio Codogno rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sf

[Note: I got the book via the Early Reviewers program of LibraryThing]

The short stories in this book are quite strange. I am not sure where to put them: it's a mix between sci-fi and fantasy with a good part of horror, at least in the first stories. I found some of them a bit disturbing, but this is a problem of mine; the prose is quite good and Kabza is really able to set up the atmospheres, even if sometimes the endings are disappointing. Among the stories, I liked The Ramshead Algorithm, the ...more

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Feb 25, 2018 Mark Moxley-Knapp rated it it was ok

Shelves: fantasy, ebook, fiction, free-sample

Sub-par fantasy shorts. Didn't finish. Maybe it's just not my thing. ...more

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Jul 07, 2020 Jerard Fagerberg rated it really liked it

3.5. really incredible imagination at work. It's almost disorienting to be transported to Kabza's many worlds, all of them full of their own languages and customs. A true hulk of creativity. ...more

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About K.J. Kabza

K.J. Kabza

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KJ Kabza began selling short fiction in 2002, while earning his B.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch College. Since then, he has sold over 70 stories to places such as F&SF, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2014, THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR, VOLUME SIX, and more. His work has been called, “Intelligent and sublime—a powerful combination” (Tang ...more