Stray Dog Swordsman on Redemption Road, by Steve Parker - a review

'I have staunched the flow from my belly as well as I am able.'

Whoah. What an opening line. It says it all really, and yet poses so many questions. A man (woman?) watches his life blood flow from his body, unable to safe enough to save themselves. It has a fatalistic edge, this one line that I love. It's dark and conveys much in just fourteen little words. Who is this individual? Victim? Slayer? Avenger?

If you've not visited the website of fellow author and good friend of mine, Steve Parker then shame on you. The line above is from one of his excellent short stories Stray Dog Swordsman on Redemption Road. What's more, it's free on his website. So stop reading this and get over there right now and read it...

You're back? Read it? Good. Mind if I share some thoughts on it with you? Well, I'm going to anyway.

Whenever I read Steve's fiction I am taken over by the spirit and the atmosphere of his settings. This one was no different, and much like Starfish (another superb story, also for free), I loved it.

It's a personal story, of Iwata Shinosuke, a former samurai who has lost his honour and become a ronin - a sword for hire. Steeped in the milieu of feudal Japan and eastern myth, it's a tale of one's redemption, of his eyes being opened to a wider purpose and the sins of his largess and failing spirit.

I won't spoil the story for those who haven't read it (get over to red-stevie.com right now you fools!), but suffice it so say, I found this a moving and chilling tale. I rejoiced as Iwata rediscovered his purpose and regained his honour; I was frozen in place inside the frost-bitten woods as he was confronted by the wraith of the girl (easily one of my favourite scenes, and genuinely eerie - I felt the temperature change just as Iwata came to the realisation that what he confronted in those benighted woods was not entirely of this world); I was reviled by the hideous kappa and distraught at the story's bleak denouement.

Any tale that elicits such an emotive response is well crafted. Let it be said: Steve has crafted a great story here, so beautifully written that I had goosebumps. Believe me, as an author and editor myself, it is always a genuine pleasure to read something of this quality. Such control and careful weighting of words, too. Everything felt just right as I was transported back hundreds of years into feudal Japan and the plight of a samurai who had lost everything, little more than a ghost himself, but found succour and release in the travail of a young girl-spirit.

Truly stirring stuff.