Title: Environmentally Friendly
Author: Elias Zanbaka
Genre: Thriller, Short Stories
First published: March 5th 2016
Publisher: E.Z. Entertainment
Finished reading: July 24th 2016
Pages: 19
“They could’ve done this when he was still a guest at the psychiatric ward, rather than waiting for him to escape and unleash this shit storm on the city.”
*** A copy of this short story was kindly provided to me in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***
I always enjoy a good action-packed thriller even if it’s a supershort one like in the case of Environmentally Friendly. This short story written by Elias Zanbaka has only 19 pages, but has action scenes for a novella at least ten times that size. In fact, the plot would work great as a full length novel as well and the story left me wanting for more. The idea of this kind of ‘extreme’ therapy is definitely intriguing and I liked both the title and the ending. Enviromentally Friendly starts with a bang and you are right in the middle of the action from the beginning. It takes some time to figure out what the story is about, but there is no doubt that this short story has an impressive amount of action, suspense and plot twists. The prose is well written, very descriptive and almost graphic; it was almost like watching a movie instead of just reading it. There isn’t a lot of character development, but that is mostly because of the size of the story. Schaefer has a lot of potential though! All in all it’s a very entertaining, fast-paced and action-packed thriller with an interesting twist.
After a traumatic experience, a war veteran has declared war on Mother Nature and plans to bring it to its knees. He is determined to destroy what caused his mission to fail in the past, and he is now chased by the LAPD in a great man hunt throughout Los Angeles. The veteran is dangerous and he is the number one target that night, but what the veteran doesn’t know is that he is actually part of something a lot bigger. Something that might help him finally complete his mission… And officer Schaefer is determined to do just that.
While Environmentally Friendly is supershort, it does offer a lot for its size. This short story is fast-paced, well written and full of action; it’s detailed descriptions making it feel as if you were watching an action movie instead of reading it. The idea of ‘extreme’ therapy is intriguing and I would love to see a larger story focusing on that! But this short story is definitely worth reading if you enjoy action-packed thrillers.
We were discussing short stories at my writers’ group this week (with a view to entering the Costa Coffee competition). I’ve long come to the conclusion that writing ‘literary’ short stories is not my thing. But I do rather like reading good ones. This one sounds intriguing. I’ve just downloaded it.
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The disadvantage of short stories is that it’s hard to include character development and/or extensive descriptions, but for a story like Environmentally Friendly (focused on action) it does work well. I hope you will enjoy it!
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