Published by Gatekeeper Press

Synopsis: 

Welcome to Daytona, 3022. Much has changed. After mankind had made peace between the nations, there still followed the Robotic Wars, the Insect Wars and the Climate Wars. Many of the world’s formally hidden creatures have risen to the surface.

The rivers and oceans have dried up and a conscious fog covers the planet. Sorry has a plan to restore the world, but to do so, must cooperate with mutants, Ocean Sprites, Seafog and his werewolf husband and conflict with Freemonkeys and Mutmuts.

You can only save the present by examining the future.

**Thank you to the author for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review**

I’m going to start this one off talking about the cover and hope I don’t come across as too mean: I think it looks a little amateurish and doesn’t do the contents justice. It does tie in with the story, but the finish on it misses the mark for me.

Stoll has a really wonderful writing style, it’s quite difficult to describe but it’s the driest kind of humour and manages to put a number of philosophical points in without making it dull, condescending or pretentious (the three main pitfalls of any philosophical content in novels, I’ve noticed. I’m aware I can be all three… so…. Shut up. Hypocrisy is allowed).

His characters are bizarre, varied and magnificent. He spits on the naming conventions of our world and just names them whatever he hell he wants, which is how I came to find myself reading about Busy, the dexterous boob lady; Sorry, the cantankerous wizard who just needs to see the world differently and Seafog… the weather.

The story kind of does its own thing, Sorry has found a new lease on life and is now determined to do everything he can to make sure that the world learns from its past to ensure that his family has the best possible future. Of course, the one thing that becomes glaringly obvious is that ‘good’ is a very subjective concept so looking at the past doesn’t bring everyone to the same conclusion about which ‘good’ parts of the past they should look to. This book is an exploration of that.

This book is primarily character driven and their dialogue is what makes this book so special. This is probably for the best because I did find the conflict in this book to be lacklustre until near the very end, characters and catastrophes come and go a little too easily to really make a lasting impact.

Stoll has a lot of profound and philosophical messages he wants to impart through his work, ranging from climate change, religion and sexuality. For the most part, he weaves all of these seamlessly into his story but nearer the end you get the feeling that he had so much more to say but had realised he was running out of space to say it – I found this disappointing because I really enjoy the philosophical side of Stoll’s work, I think he either needs to give in and write longer books or economise his issues per book and just accept he needs to write more books for me to enjoy!