Engraved on the Eye is a collection of 8 short stories told in various settings of Fantasy Middle East, drawing on Islamic and Middle Eastern folklore. It’s an extremely quick read. The stories are entertaining and the characters are lively, jovial, and diverse. Every story has some sort of supernatural creatures; ghuls feature prominently, along with ghul-hunters, martial artists, gunslingers, supervillains, rogues, dervishes,bounty hunters, and shaykhs.
As with many short story books, there’s a range in subject matter and quality. I particularly enjoyed Mister Hadj’s Sunset Ride (about a gun-slinging Muslim wizard in the old West) and General Akmed’s Revenge? (about a struggling actor’s typecasting as an Arab Villain in Hollywood), which were creative, consise, and thought-provoking–good short-story-stories.
However, I found Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela and Judgement of the Swords and Souls a little disjointed–weird, which is not bad, but I wanted more explanation and backstory than Ahmed gave. Neither grabbed me, but both were creative–maybe they would be better long-story-stories?
Rating: 3/5–Enjoyed, recommend, but it’s a little uneven. The first story is apparently the introduction to Ahmed’s longer fantasy novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon, which I might just have to pick up for the next CBR!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.