This book has me utterly entranced for four main reasons;

1. Wordplay: A drabble is a short piece of fiction of exactly 100 words

2. The efforts taken by the author and publisher to match the stories and icons must have taken a lot of time, and coffee. The stories and icons are so deliciously random and convoluted that there is a temptation to break each icon down to its constituent parts to try and find patterns that will allow them to be used in different combinations, making this book delightfully meditative. This may be an intention reminiscent of the era in which the author surmises that the stories were written (1960s/ 1970s)

3. The back story: It's so nice to place the endeavour in space and time, and give it a new lease of life decades later (I will not spoil the backstory as that sets the reader up for the book)

4. The Artwork: It is a delightful mix of psychedelia and cave painting/ chalk hill figure styles, perhaps drawn in ink and watercolour and I found myself turning the page and thinking of my own alternative drabbles

This is a book that is multi-faceted and you see something new every time. It is a pleasure to get lost in the stories and familiarise yourself with the images. Beautifully done

This glorious book was gratefully received from NetGalley and I leave my review voluntarily

I would define this as an exercise in style and creativity. Very short story and a drawing. Each story made me wish I could learn more about the world and the character.
It's an unusual and great read that I strongly recommend.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I was a big fan of there Griffin and Sabine series. But here there doesn't seem to have been an overarching narrative. It was just a collection of vignettes. I don't think it worked very well and they needed something to tie them together. The conceit of a 100-word tale, an allusion to a drabble, was clever. But it was only clever, with nothing else.

The Corset & the Jellyfish is another widely imaginative product from the mind of Nick Bantock. It is a “found manuscript” purportedly finding its way from an unknown author to the hands of Bantock. The stories consist of 100 hundred-word short stories, or drabbles, accompanied by curious doodles. The drabbles range from a coherent story to the absurd, and they may be read in any order. This book is not for a reader seeking to get “lost” in a story or character. I believe these stories would be best read one or two at a time. While I think this may not be for everyone, readers who enjoy whimsy will likely find this book delightfully. It should also appeal to fans of Bancock’s Griffin and Sabine series.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me a free eARC of this book to read in exchange for my review!

These vignettes give the reader a glimpse of other worlds, other lives. It is clear that the drabbles are just momentary flashes on stories that continue on where the reader can't see them. The book is reminiscent of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and a fantastic collection of microfiction.

An absolutely fun read, Bantock seems to be having fun with words and then found a publisher daring enough to work with, legend.

If you like reading flash fiction and you love Alice in Wonderland, Nick Bantock’s new collection of 100 word stories will be perfect for you!

The author begins by telling the reader how a collection of these exactly 100 word stories had been found in a cardboard box in someone’s attic, and they had mailed it to him along with a group of petroglyphic icon creatures.

Supposedly, one story was missing from the collection. Readers can take one work from each story to create the final missing story.

I always love when there is a fictionalized backstory of how the author came to be in possession of a lost or buried manuscript!

All types of genres are represented in this collection from mystery and horror to science fiction and fairy tales. Some are more realistic than others, but I’d say a large number of the stories are speculative in some way.

It’s fascinating to me when writers and artists are give a limited structure in which to create. Telling a story in exactly 100 words is tough! Not all the stories were great, but I found myself impressed often with what Bantock created in this collection.

Don’t expect the stories to link up or tell a larger story, although if you read carefully you’ll catch repeated symbols, plots and characters.

This is a fun book to pick up and read a few stories every day. I’d recommend if you’re looking for something a little bit different.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the digital arc. All opinions are my own.

I loved Nick Bantock’s Griffin & Sabine trilogy, though I haven’t read the follow-ups, so of course I was intrigued by the sound of this when I saw it come up in Netgalley. It’s a collection of microfiction, but it offers a challenge as well: there’s a link between these drabbles, if you’re dedicated enough to seek it out.

I wasn’t, I must confess: in ebook form, and reading on my desktop so I could see the images in colour, it just wasn’t comfortable/fun to try to flick back and forth. I’ll be eager to see what other people make of the mystery.

For the stories themselves, I’m not entirely certain what I think. On the one hand, I’m very picky about my microfiction, and these didn’t quite grab me. On the other hand, something about them got under my skin and made me want to get back to writing some microfiction of my own — and that usually happens when something a little bit magical is happening. I wonder if this is a collection that will grow on me — especially when wiser heads solve the mysteries of the links between stories.

Blog Post Goes Live Nov 7th
Will be Featured on a Should You Read on Youtube

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. The Corset & The Jellyfish is a (per the title) ‘Conundrum of Drabbles’. I will certainly agree that it’s a conundrum. I am puzzled and confused and honestly questioning… why?

The Drabbles in question of The Corset & The Jellyfish are all exceptionally short fiction pieces. I’m talking, perhaps a page or two each depending of font and setting. Some of them had a glimmer of something fascinating, a few made me uncomfortable, and I remember almost nothing about them a day later. That really says something for the book.

It was in not offensive, and it was short enough that I feel my time wasn’t wasted, but sincerely I am wondering, why? Why is this a book that exists? Was it simply published for the author name? I can’t say I’ve ever heard of Mr. Bantock but he could be very popular in other circles. The narrative ‘structure’ of the book, if you can call it that, is that the stories can be used to construct your own story or the secret story that may somehow connect them all. Frankly, based on the stories length and number of stories I call poppycock on that.

The Corset & The Jellyfish is truly one of the first books that I have to say, with the upmost respect - Why? Why does this exist? There was ultimately little to nothing to gleam from this. The doodles, while fine, definitely felt familiar to me in that ways late 80’s - early 90’s art somehow looked. I was left completely puzzled as to what I was meant to take from it. Not offended but puzzled.

2 Confused and Bewildered Stars out of 5

This curious little collection brings together 100 pieces of microfiction alongside 100 doodles by the author. Most of them range toward the absurd and the fantastical in bite-size morsels of literature.
The foreword invites the reader to select one word from each story and create a 101st piece, which I find delightful but would be more inclined to do with a physical copy than an ebook. This is a nice volume to browse and cherry-pick from, and it can no doubt inspire writers to try their hands at their own drabble, or even to expand on a situation that tickles their fancy!

Pretty good stories. This is a niche title. This author has been around a while and has a following, but this is my first go. Most of the stories were entertaining, and a fun read.

Thanks very much for the free copy for review!!

Like many others, I read Bantock's Griffin and Sabine books with some pleasure, mostly because I wasn't really thinking too hard when I was reading them. But the shine has gone off; this newest book, a collection of "drabbles," or 100-word stories, while full of references to a wide variety of other literature and beautiful language and pretty words strung together, is also full of the male gaze, objectifying women. It gets pretty gross. In addition, I don't love the conceit: the author found a manuscript, but it's out of order, Can readers figure out the intended order, and is there a hidden message? This kind of presentation is often--and certainly is, in this case--an author trying to prove how smart they are, and telling their readers that they have to work harder to figure out what the author actually means to say.

This delightful and imaginative book is perfect for lovers of language and whimsy. Fans of Griffin & Sabine will be thrilled to have something new from Bantock to read and relish. Highly recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This collection of "drabbles" - 100-word stories - accompanied by little drawings is sometimes humorous, sometimes thought-provoking, and always a treat for Bantock fans.