Title: Dragonfire is Brighter than the Ten Thousand Stars
Author: Mark Robert Philips
In: The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk (Sean Wallace)
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Dieselpunk, Romance
Dates read: 21st March 2020
Pace: Medium
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2015
5th sentence, 74th page: Song had made me go over border procedure again and again, memorizing each typescript that had been inside the hemp folder.

The love of his life betrayed him years ago. But, when she need him the most, he’s more than willing to risk his life to save her. And finally uncover the truth behind her betrayal.

This was a ridiculously sweet and surprisingly cute short story. It’s towards the end of the The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk collection. Most of the stories in this collection are a little more rough around the edges. And whilst this story is about betrayal and revolution and riots and spies… it’s also about love and I found that aspect to be incredibly sweet.

This is a slightly longer short story and one that I found incredibly hard to put down. It’s also quite hard to forget. Something about the storyline, the writing and the emotions throughout completely enthralled me and made it very difficult to forget and stop thinking about. There is just something so sweet, yet tragic about a man getting caught and forced to find his ex. The woman who he was betrayed by. Yet, there is still a sense of hope and care all throughout, even when conspiracies and suspicions are running rampant.

The ending of this short story seriously left me in my happy place. It has that riding off into the sunset feeling. But it also has a lot more closure than many of the short stories that I’ve been reading lately. The combination worked well for me and left me feeling like there was a sense of completion to the story.

<- Floodgate

Mountains of Green ->

Image source: Running Press