by Edd Vick

Fairwood Press
(www.fairwoodpress.com)
2019, 307 pages, $17.99

ISBN 978-1-933846-85-9

Click here to purchase

TRUER LOVE gives us sentient customs robots, Polaroid images that come to life, a bumpkin who becomes Pope, not to mention intelligent whales questioning their existence: all this wackiness is commonplace to Vick in this single-author collection.

I enjoyed these:

“Moon Does Run.” In the days when new regimes and consequent power struggles consume a country, what happens to the duties and intelligence of a customs administration robot? And what becomes of the intelligent fiber of that device when it realizes that its existence is in vain?

“Polaroid Land.” Piet, a collector of discarded photos, discovers that Polaroids of a woman, Sarah, come to life once a day for a few minutes and reveal so much about Sarah across time. Piet falls in love with Sarah, and even though the photos reveal an earlier period in history, Piet becomes part of her life, until the last of her photos appear.

“Rebel the First and Only.” A country bumpkin is elected pope, but can he perform a pope’s duty? One thing everyone in this tale learns are words of caution: Be careful who you elect, because you are never certain what kind of person he is or what the consequences of his actions will be.

“The Great Depth.” The world of a whale and how it survives life in the sea, while its own species begins to fail, as “landers” and others species threaten it, is central to this tale. Time makes its very existence almost helpless and, at the same time, a blessing.

“Call to Order.” The would-be assassin of a Supreme Court judicial member as every reason to dispense with the ultraconservative leader, until the justice’s real source of power is revealed.

There are some tales here that make you wonder: what is next for Vick?