Many of the short stories herein are inspired by memories I have of events in my life or related events I’ve witnessed or read about. Family is important to me so many stories are about relationships, love, sharing and giving, overcoming difficulties. Read about an older man and an abandoned baby. His last days. Three men acting like boys. Ten year old boys and the trouble they get into. The … grueling work of dismantling ships by hand. Retirees with too much time on their hands. The dangers of shopping in Outer Space. Visiting a Food Bank. A covered wagon with a family and all of their possessions. Escaping slaves. Seniors with nothing to eat. The revenge of the wasps. Returning to the country of your birth. A Honey Trap. A detective that discovers crimes too close to home.
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Full of short stories inspired by memories or the related events of the author’s life, A Box Full of Memories is an entertaining read that is a pleasure to read. Some of the characters are found in more than one story, each of whom the author bought to life from the way he described them.
Although some of the descriptions were a little overdone, I still found myself immersed in the stories. There was only one story I couldn’t get into, but it did not stop me reading the rest.
Of all the stories, Wasps! was my favourite, as it geared towards the types of stories I enjoy reading.
It’s unusual for me these days to pick a book of short stories to read. I’m inclined to choose novels in a number of different genres. That’s been the focus of my own writing for the last few years. But Allan Hudson’s delightful collection of stories, A Box of Memories, reminded me of what I’ve been missing.
The characters all feel like real people, sometimes strange, sometimes quirky, but always memorable. Hudson takes you back to your childhood with the two stories featuring ten-year-old Beans and Chops. Okay, you have to be old enough to imagine youthful adventures before cell phones and the internet, but even if you’re not that old, the stories hold up beautifully. Hudson has a knack for putting the reader in the midst of a time and place that feel comfortable.
The stories in A Box of Memories feature characters of both genders, ages from preteen to octogenarian, times from the early settling of the West to well into the future not yet realized. Pretty much all of the characters are relatable to most of us, even if we’ve never been so poor we had to attend funeral receptions to be able to get a decent meal, even if we’ve never found an abandoned baby, even if we’ve never escaped slavery in the old South. That’s because the characters are at once appealing and feel real for their time and place. That’s not such an easy thing to accomplish, but Hudson has the talent and the empathy to pull it off beautifully.
One of the advantages of a collection of short stories is that you have clear stopping points. There are no cliff hangers that force you on to the next chapter, even when it’s well past your bedtime. But I found myself reading right through these stories in a few days. I was anxious to see where Hudson’s imagination would take me next, and I wasn’t disappointed even once. A Box of Memories gets my highest recommendation.
Read over three weeks, a story a day, I can honestly say that this little treasure trove has kept me sane during these difficult times.
The stories fall into different genres but are mostly contemporary. As a writer myself I enjoy creating short stories. They are an opportunity to run with a great but small idea that can not be sustained for the length of a novel – Reaching the Pinnacle is a perfect example of that and a great story with which to open the anthology.
Sometimes, when you start what is intended to be a short story, you realise there’s more you want to say either for or about the characters. Often in anthologies the reader can pick up on this. So I was very pleased to see that Mr Hudson didn’t let me down. Two Boys, one Wagon and a Secret introduces two great little characters in the form of Beans and Chops. A pair of ten-year-old boys with adventure on their minds. I loved the swift pace of this particular story, the wit with which it was told and the neat little plot. The characters were so well drawn, that I wanted to know more and read more. Luckily for me, Mr Hudson did not disappoint as there is a second story which is just as enjoyable as the first.
I felt the same about the character of Lloyd in Lloyd and the Baby, the characters featured in Two Grumpy Old Men Cafe and on each occassion I got a follow up story just as heart warming and entertaining as the first.
There’s something for everyone in this collection, even Sci Fi fans in the shape of The Far Out Mall. I can thoroughly recommend it.