[alert variation=”alert-info”]Publisher: Concordia Publishing Services
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Purchase: Amazon[/alert]
Juarez Square and Other Stories by D.L. Young is a collection of science fiction short stories, each portraying a world changed by technology and our ambitions. Some of the stories take place in a seceded Texas while others take place in other countries or fictionalized islands. What they all have in common is technology: robots, miracle plants, and youth serums – wondrous technologies used and abused in a society of very human people. Young blends some of the realities of our own society, greed and ambition, with his imagination, asking us to imagine if the futures he has laid out in his short stories could possibly be our own if we keep going the way we are.
D.L. Young has gathered together a collection of short stories that display a talented imagination and an ability to think outside the box. Each story is unique and the stories are arranged well. The stories are often dark with some violence, and most of his characters face some sort of moral or ethical dilemma that has the potential to alter their lives and possibly those of countless others.
Young, being from Texas and speaking fluent Spanish, artfully blends some Spanish throughout most of his stories. Most of the time it adds an interesting flavor, while sometimes the use of Spanish seems a little out of place. It feels like the stories tend to get shorter as you move through the collection, some of them ending long before you want them to. Some of the stories feel a little unfinished – Young’s characters often making interesting choices, but the stories end with the decision, leaving us to imagine the consequences. Two, maybe three of the stories, would have been more interesting, and had the potential to further explore his themes, if he would have carried us through to a more logical ending. Compliments to the writer who leaves the reader wanting more, which Young has definitely succeeded in doing, but the collection feels a little incomplete in its current form.
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