Another Space in Time

This read of four interlocking short stories draws one into what are to most people fairly unfamiliar lives, yet reflects on life truths that affect us all. I have never played cards for big money, or betted more than a few coins in what we accurately used to call 'one-arm-bandits', but the story made me feel as though I had. Equally, I've never given up my freedom to drugs, but felt the sickening 'necessity' of the next fix for a few minutes. My favourite story was about the gambler's mother, trying to understand by learning poker for herself. We get a feel for how each character rubs against the others through different first person points of view. The stories pass all too fast. This is interesting fiction observing human behaviours from inside fictional characters. I would gamble that the character Elliot has a real thread of Jeff Maehre in him, but then, as I say, I don't put money on it.  AMAZON LINK

First off, I wasn't happy with the flow of words because of unfamiliar use of English. I put that down to my age and culture and the fact that Aguayo is bilingual and probably leaning to a more formal Spanish than English Language schooling. There is also a steady flow of simple grammatical errors. Despite my concerns the book is very readable; I would never finish a book that wasn't. I hope this doesn't put you off reading but perhaps rather encourages Aguayo to employ additional editors. The plot is very entertaining; with a good deal of what are to me very original ideas. The dystopian world that Aguayo creates is quite fascinating, and definitely fantastical rather than science factual. There are speculative fiction, cyberpunk, science fiction and fantasy elements in this story. Reading a male author writing first person as a gay female drug addict is certainly unusual. My view that Aguayo was playing psychoanalyst on himself as though he was a still juvenile female...