Komodo by Jeff VanderMeer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm certainly thinking I should read more short fiction, so seeing as there was a Weird Fiction Storybundle put together by Area X's Jeff VanderMeer, I dove in. One of his shorts, Komodo, was part of it.
Yep, it's weird all right.
The story is a strange one to describe, our narrator giving a tale to a child that gets progressively stranger and more disturbing as it goes on. It's almost a short game of one-upsmanship, as each break in the story seems to introduce an even more bizarre wrinkle that didn't exist before. True or not to the narrator, it's just that classic piece of unease throughout.
What's impressive about this is that it's the first truly short story (between 30-40 pages depending on device) that seemed to feel complete to me while also not losing any sort of edge or feel like it needed more. Would I love to read more about the universe described here? Without a doubt. Does it take away from what's already in this tale? Not at all.
Definitely worth a look, and shouldn't take you too long to read, either. Very enjoyable piece of short fiction, and perhaps a nice little gateway into the weird fiction universe everyone's talking about.
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