What Worked
Short story collections are like a box of chocolates. Sure, looking at the glossy bonbons, you don’t know which is going to be coconut cream and which one is, uh, pink, but you do roughly know what you’re getting when you buy a box of Whitman’s or Russel Stover. Such is the case when you pick up a collection or anthology—a certain quality author or editor is going to provide certain quality stories, despite inevitable pink cream equivalent. The way to avoid that is to buy a better box of chocolates. The Ramshead Algorithm, my friends, is a box of top-end Godiva.*

Every story in this collection is excellent. I had read over half of them in the past between Kabza’s self-pubbed collection Under Stars and some of his more recent publications. I decided to reread them in order to have the full experience of the collection. I noticed certain details (gardens, hedge mazes, ruins, and oceans) that repeat throughout as well a theme of searching and finding which I might have missed if I had only read the new-to-me stories.

I believe in my review of Under Stars I mentioned how well-done the world building is and I want to reiterate that. The short story form necessitates brevity, but every detail in these stories creates the world, whether the flash fiction-sized “All Souls Proceed” to the novella “You Can’t Take It With You.”

What Didn’t Work
My one and only beef was that I had scheduled out the stories from this collection not realizing that the final one in the collection “You Can’t Take It With You” was indeed a novella of a hundred pages. My entire reading schedule was messed up and it was basically my own darn fault.

So, there is nothing that didn’t work.

(Btw, “You Can’t Take It With You” is what Ready Player One would be without the nostalgia nods every .5 seconds. And this story is the better one.)

Overall
Readers might be interested to know that Kabza is a LGBTQ+ writer and some of his characters are LGBTQ+ as well. If your doing a diversity-in-reading challenge, sure, go ahead, this is a great collection to add to your pile. But, please, don’t let that be the only reason you decide to read The Ramshead Algorithm. Read it because who doesn’t want a box of Godiva?

When the very first story makes you feel mushy in a very nice way ,you have some hopes from the book. And then the author takes you on all sort of feeling rideswith views as varied as you can imagine. This book redefined Sci fic for me in a way that I can like this genre too. Every story was a delight to read the setting and still so close to real feelings and reactions. good research has been done in places and other areas are shining with brilliant writing. My favorite story is "the color of sand". It read as a lovely children fiction but the end has a surprise element that was just perfectly done.

This is a gorgeous collection of short stories. Each one is totally unique and yet there is some whimsical, je ne sais quois that holds them all together in a cohesive collection. They appeal to the fantasy lover in me with all the creative, unexpected elements that flood each story. The idea of a hedge maze that is a portal to another realm just hit me right where I wanted it to.

What I loved most were the illustrations that precede each story, simple yet effective at setting the scene of what is to come and entirely necessary when you are trying to set up such disparate settings.

So often the pitfall of short story compilations is that the stories try to be too deep. You know what I mean? Where they somehow feel the need to impart wisdom through a powerful (read: almost incomprehensible) metaphor that just leaves you feeling a little flat. These were so much more about the creativity and the speedy worldbuilding and the magic of it all that you don’t get caught up in all of the metaphor etc.

If you like short story compilations and/or you are into fantasy this is a book to get your hands on. Well worth your time!

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Find The Ramshead Algorithm on Goodreads

By the way, I received a digital advanced review copy of this title from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.