Reader's review

Searching around the web, I came across this reader's review of Dark City. I hope the blog author won't mind me reposting it :) You can see the original blog at

http://rajaezman88.blogspot.com/2006/06/dark-city.html

Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Dark City...
My second book review...
Hmmm....
The book... Dark City... and I'm particularly proud of this one...
Written by a M'sian who goes under the pseudonym of Xeus...
It comprises of 12 different stories... sharing a similar theme... which is...
HOW PSYCHO THIS WORLD CAN BE !!!
It's first short-story says it all... Psychotic tells about a young woman, who was waylaid in a dark alley by a serial rapist. So the question is does she stay alive??? Or... is there something else about the story ( I would definately suspect the latter... ). Every story tends to bring out the same feeling within all it's readers...
At first, people will be thinking that each plot are extremely cliche... but by the middle part of each story, things take a twist... and each ending is definately unexpected !!!
Some of the stories, though, are only suitable for the upper-aged class of readers...
To many 'things' are written extremely in detail...
It took me aproximately 2 days to finish this 353 paged book...

Ok... so here's a list of stories in the book and a brief synopsis about each of them...

1. Psychotic : A woman struggles for dear life when she is abducted and raped... but does she make it out alive.. or is there more to this story....???

2.Trashcan Child : A lady takes in a trashcan child and treats her as her own... eventhough she had solemnly swore before that she would never have children... Will this baby change her mind??

3.One if by land : Prison inmates are dropping like flies and it's up to a sole newcomer to get to the bottom of things... But who's killikg all the inmates, one at a time??? The wardens??? The doctors??? Hmmm...

4.Session One : A wife struggles to keep her marriage intact, eventhough she's well aware that her husband has been cheating on her ( with her best friend !!! ). Will her therapy sessions help??

5.The scarlet women : A horny 16 year old finnaly gets to live his dream ( and a shallow one, I might add... ) of hiring a prostitute... but does everything go according to plan???

6.The six million dollar man : Who would be a prime suspect for your murder... a. your beautiful, extremely-nice-to-you-for-your-money wife; b. your 'I wanna be a chef and not go to Cambridge and you can't make me' son, whom you refuse to pay for his education other than the unversities you've chosen for him; c. your mistress, who's also a gold-digger; d. your not-so satisfied body guard, whom you last threw his cousin into jail for delibrately saving your life; or e. your business partner, who's all out to grab your business away from you... It's hard being rich !!!

7. Coup of the century : It's a dog-eats-dog world out there.. so you better watch your back... Tells about two rivals desperately trying to beat each other in a bid to own a Doberman...

8. The resistance : A lady forsees a deadly terrorist attack... but who would believe her... or will she be too late... ( This is the only sub-par story among the others... )

9. The maid : A cleaver in her hand... and a dead maid on the floor smothered in blood... Who killed the maid on the kitchen floor??? The housewife killed the maid on the kitchen floor... who she... yes she... couldn't be... but it's TRUE !!! ( insert music for the song ' Who took the cookie from the cookie jar...' )

10. Grave error : What if, one day, you wake up and suddenly find yourself in your own grave??? What would you do??? Who, do you think did this to you??? Are you really DEAD ???

11. Incident at Monkey Gorge : Three suspects. All girls. All related to the murdered in differnet ways. All of them were there when he died. Question : Who killed him and who's telling the truth??? Or is there more than meets the eye ?

12. Monster : Which is worst : A kid who gives both his parents tons of problems and is extremely ill-disciplined, a father who tries desperately to teach his kid a lesson and finnaly resorting to the help of kidnappers, or kidnappers who take things into their own hands and keep the kid to themselves for other 'purposes'???



According to the author, of these twelve, two are based on urban legends, one is a tribute to Edgar Allen Poe and the other nine are made up.... so which is which???

Read and decide for yourself...
But, I can gurantee you that it's worth every cent you spend on it... ( RM 29.90 )
Plus, it's Malaysian !!! The stories are closely related to our everyday life... all our miseries and sorrows...
Out of 5 ... it'd give it a 3.5 ....
But that's just me...
La la la la la....
( P.S. I tried retrieving the front cover of the book... but unfortunately, I couldn't find it... It was, however, previewed in The Star newspaper twice in the past 2 months...)

posted by The Easy Man at Wednesday, June 14, 2006