Review of Second Universe by John A. Ayala

I'm not sure why I even bothered to read Second Universe, the sequel to Primordial Labyrinth by John A. Ayala when I really didn't like the first one at all. I suppose I was hoping the sequel would help me understand the first short story better, but it really did not have that effect. This story was slightly easier to follow than the first one, but not enough to earn it more than one star. The most I could gather from the plot was that the protagonist and a couple of companions fled from war to a different universe where they then multiplied and then eventually started war in the second universe and dragged a few other universes into the war as well. Like Primordial Labyrinth, I feel like this short story was more like an outline for a story rather than a story in and of itself and that the author just tried to pack way too much stuff into too short of a story. I definitely don't recommend reading this story, and I doubt I will be reading anything else from this author.

Review of Primordial Labyrinth by John A. Ayala

I don't really have too much to say about the short story Primordial Labyrinth by John A. Ayala. I'm not even entirely sure what this story was about because it was so confusing and hard to follow. The best I could make out was that it involved some sort of space war to try to defeat some sort of labyrinth that may have been putting the entire universe in danger, but I'm not even entirely sure what exactly the labyrinth was. This short story seemed more like an outline for a story rather than a story itself. Maybe it could have been good if it was turned into a full length novel but it's pretty awful as it currently stands. I think the author tried to pack way too much into too short of a story without really bothering to explain a lot of things. I definitely would not recommend reading this story.

Review of Klarity by C. J. Anderson

Klarity by C. J. Anderson is a short story about a scientist who creates a miracle drug that will cure Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases. He rushes to test the drug on his ill son, and while the drug works, it has the serious side effect of turning him into an atheist. As an extremely religious man, this is a side effect that he cannot live with and he must make the decision whether or not to destroy his groundbreaking discovery. While I thought the concept of this story was interesting, and in some ways reminded me of Flowers for Algernon, I thought it was poorly executed. The writing seemed amateur and awkward in many places and the timeline jumping around was somewhat confusing. I also felt the religious zealotry in this story was over the top. I know there are religious extremists out there, but the way it was done in this story wasn’t very believable to me and it almost seemed like it was meant to be satire, but if it was, it wasn’t very funny. I also did not find the ending to the story to be at all satisfying and for the most part didn’t seem to have too much to do with the rest of the story. Overall I don’t think I enjoyed this story very much and wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a shame really because it was such an intriguing story premise, but it could have been done so much better than it was.