Hollow Shotguns [Paperback]

I bought a copy of this after seeing some buzz about it on social networks. It's possibly the most intriguing narrative I've come across for a while (movies included). It's kinda like Stand By Me meets The Walking Dead by way of The Wire crossed with Battle Royale... but still its own unique beast altogether. It takes old clichés & archetypes & then proceeds to twist & subvert them into something else entirely. Very worth a read. It'll get your brain tickling too! I should mention though that the first chapter is particularly demanding. I personally liked the challenge, but if you struggle, persevere! It does get easier, otherwise you'll miss out on a pretty sublime read.

The pace of Hollow Shotguns is launched in the opening pages. The narrative is unrelenting, mesmeric, sparked with emotional energy; the jarred and disjointed prose providing imagery of chaos and destruction that is almost tangible, at times viscerally alarming, yet captivating throughout.

Set in the blistering heat of summer, this is the story of a gang of preadolescents striving to survive the homicidal consequences of a raging virus. As Hollow Shotguns unfolds, it becomes evident that the traditional materials of horror are being pushed far wider, merging popular and literary fiction. Whilst its foundations may lie in the horror genre, rather than sinking to the usual slasher plotlines and letting the reader idly suspend disbelief, the narrative forces them to confront and question where the real threat to the physical and spiritual self lies. It's a work that never patronises, brave enough to challenge its readers not just appease them. As the measures taken to ensure survival escalate, Hollow Shotguns unnervingly exposes how the capacity for harm which dwells within the human psyche is far more terrifying than any external demons.

The humour weaving through the passages offers some respite from the intensity of the main subject matter, with constantly well-placed reminders of our protagonists' youth and innocence, juxtaposing the bleaker backdrop of the apocalypse and the violence. The naive pondering of the young prodigies', often focusing on minute and irrelevant details irrespective of the approaching apocalypse, serves to develop the characters and give the book heart. From corrupt governments to antiquated education systems, all come in for hilarious ridicule... especially poignant when expressed from the mouths of the young boys.

Hollow Shotguns is laced with phonetic beauty. Many lines exhibit the author masterfully combining lexicons to create sentences which are as evocative as they are poetic. It has a strange, addictive prose that reinforces the darkness of the book. The style may require some acclimatising, but once its unique rhythms have been clicked to, Hollow Shotguns becomes nightmarishly engrossing.

The battle sequences are particularly absorbing. A poem in motion, delirious, disquieting. Yet the gore and violence is not to conform to audience expectations (and nor does it), but more an organic consequence of the story Hollow Shotguns is telling.

There are no tidy resolutions with this tale. Whilst Hollow Shotguns celebrates the social balance which ensues as class divides disintegrate, the reader is left considering a vision of a society perishing from within as it comes to terms with the material and moral sacrifices made to ensure survival.

Yes... I liken Hollow Shotguns to that triumph of television. It's a just comparison in my estimation. The Wire handled real themes in real, grounded manners. Hollow Shotguns handles real & fantastical themes... in real, grounded manners. It portrays an apocalypse where a government-instigated disease is rendering humans beastly, horrific, demonic. Yet the depiction of beasts & demons is not the most nightmarish element of Hollow Shotguns. It is the depiction of authorial corruption, social abandonment, inequality & the failure of political systems to aid those they serve... as it is all too real.

The narrative is brilliantly intertwined with our existing world. Hollow Shotguns may be fiction, but its portrayal of the systemic inequality choking the urban poor feels hauntingly true. The author has created a fresh city to explore his global themes of poverty, social imbalance. It is called Riverstones City. He's created not a living, breathing world, but a perishing, crumbling one. Wherein adolescent idealism prematurely erodes into disillusionment. Wherein destitute street kids fight stray dogs for food. Wherein an abused child is numbed to the point of contemplating cannibalism.

Every facet of Hollow Shotguns possesses a trembling, terrifying realism; all the more unexpected for a story with `demons'. Yet the potentially more fantastical elements of the narrative are smartly grounded in science, something consciously not made apparent from the onset

As a demonstration of the craft & possibilities of literature, it wholly succeeds. Hollow Shotguns is bathed in seminal use of language & mind-swishing narrative tricks. Genre staples, stereotypes are slain. There is a fierce intelligence coursing throughout. The book respects its readers, with a refreshing willingness not to patronise. No hand-holding. You either `get' Hollow Shotguns, flow with it, or you're left hanging in its smoke.

Socio-political asides permeate the intricate narrative. It is a pared-back, grounded take on an apocalypse, one of confusions, authorial failings & confronting consciences. Its pre-apocalypse portrait of societal bleakness is impactful, sobering. Its post-apocalypse portrait of societal bleakness, haunting.

Hollow Shotguns must be experienced. You won't feel entirely the same after you've read it as you did before...