“The Wheel of Justice” has been chosen as a featured story at Short Fiction Spotlight.
An anthology that includes my short story “ManDrake” has just been released.
A Splendid Salmagundi is a delicious salad of short stories seasoned with a light dusting of poems, covering a variety of genres. You will find one or two true stories, some humour, some horror, fantasy, adventure and science fiction. Many are Amazon published authors whose work you may already have read. Others will soon be favourites.
Hilariously funny dark humor and biting satire combine in this short story set on an American TV game-show of the near future.
Cover Art by Dyfed Thomas.
US – http://www.amazon.com/Wheel-Justice-short-story-ebook/dp/B004YDR07A
UK – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wheel-Justice-short-story-ebook/dp/B004YDR07A
Kindling has received the following review on the Indie Ebook Review blog:
“Kindling” has recently received the following review from the other side of the world 🙂
5 out of 5 stars
Extremely Well Written Short Stories. Really Worth Reading, May 26, 2012
By
Georgina Anne Taylor (Australia)
Amazon Verified Purchase
This review is from: Kindling (a collection of short stories) (Kindle Edition)
This collection of short stories was a lovely surprise. I wasn’t drawn by the cover, serendipity led me to download it. I took a quick look at the first short story, as I usually do, to get an idea of the writing style. I read the first page, and continued on. The writing is wonderful– I mean really good! It flows effortlessly. Each short story is very different, the approach, narrative, and cadence of the passages too. I thought they all worked equally well. Among my favourites: the delightfully surreal ‘The Adventures of Freddie the Moth’, the very funny ‘The Waster’s Tale’, and the beautifully chilling ‘The Tell-Tale Trunk’.
On The Bus
In the1964 Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters travelled around the United States of America in a day-glo bus turning people on to LSD. Tom Wolfe captures their exploits in his journalistic novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test first published in 1968. The people and places appearing in the story are real, the events described actually happened but this book is more than just journalism. By using journalistic techniques and combining them with the artistic devices of the novel Wolfe has (as he says in an Author’s note to the book) “tried not only to tell what the Pranksters did but to re-create the mental atmosphere or subjective reality of it.” He succeeded. The experience of an acid trip is almost impossible to convey to the uninitiated but Wolfe describes the people, places and events so well that the reader feels he or she was there.
The book begins in San Francisco as Ken Kesey is getting out of jail. He has been incarcerated on possession of drugs charges. Wolfe, working as a journalist at the time and certainly not a hippy, has come out to join up with Kesey as he is reunited with his friends, the Merry Pranksters. From there we are barrelled along on a roller-coaster ride of technicolour trips around the states on the bus nicknamed Further. This name was mis-spelt as Furthur when painted on to the front of the bus.
Furthur was a 1939 International Harvester school bus purchased by Ken Kesey in 1964. The bus was stripped down and remodeled inside and out for a trip across the country with Kesey and the Merry Pranksters on board. The destination sign on the bus was painted to read “Furthur”. Beat legend Neal Cassady (who was the basis for Dean Moriarty in Kerouac’s On The Road) was the driver of the famous bus on its original trip to New York for the World’s Fair and the opening of Kesey’s new book, Sometimes A Great Notion. The trip was filmed by Kesey’s friends and the film is now sold on intrepidtrips.com as “Intrepid Traveller and His Merry Pranksters Leave in Search of A Kool Place”.
Ken Kesey (1935 – 2001) first came to literary prominence with his first novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest published in 1962. Randle Patrick McMurphy, a prisoner whose term is nearly over, decides to have himself declared insane so he’ll be transferred to a mental institution, where he expects to spend the rest of his time in peace. McMurphy’s ward in the mental institution is run by an unyielding tyrant, Nurse Ratched, who has cowed the patients, who are mostly there by choice, into dejected institutionalised submission. McMurphy becomes ensnared in a number of power-games with Nurse Ratched for the hearts and minds of the inmates. All the time, however, the question is in the mind as to just how sane any of the players in this actually are. Kesey’s novel raises a number of interesting questions about the nature of the state and power structures and could be interpreted on a number of allegorical levels.
One of the most important aspects of the bus trips was to spread the word around America about the psychedelic drug LSD. The word psychedelic is a neologism coined form the Greek words for “mind,” psyche, and “manifest,” delos. The term was first coined as a noun in 1956. The acid tests as they became known were big happenings where bands such as The Grateful Dead played all night and LSD was served to the revelers mixed in with Kool-Aid (a soft drink).
While Furthur is rolling across the states in a riot of day-glo, Merry Pranksters spilling out of it drug crazed and dressed in stars and stripes, Wolfe reports on many different meetings from ex-Harvard doctor turned acid guru Timothy Leary to the Hell’s Angels. The Pranksters lay out a welcome party for the Beatles at one point but the Fab Four don’t show up.
This book is different, like the people on the bus, in dealing with real people and events it is a historical documentary of a particularly exciting and crazy period in American history. Anyone interested in the hippy movement of the 1960’s or mind altering chemicals would find this an interesting story to read. Tom Wolfe despite his un-hip right wing leanings has managed to capture the brightly coloured live for now atmosphere of the hippy generation.
Best wishes, Stephen Livingston.
“The Wheel of Justice” has received the following review by Nena at Goodreads:
Nena rated it 
Kindle Edition:
“This is a really short story but excellently done. The author shows true creativity and imagination with the idea of a televised game show where criminals of the worst kind are executed in living color before a live studio audience after prospective contestants vie for a chance at the Wheel by answering trivia questions relating to crime and justice. The gameshow itself reminded me of a cross between Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right and Jeopardy. There is even a spokesmodel in the mold of Vanna White.
Each segment of the game show is interupted by commercials which are hilarious. Particularly the home security commercial. I actually laughed out loud when reading these commercials.
There are lots of things going on here, one of which is a satirical look at just how low we are willing to go in the name of television entertainment. This is most likely the next step in the evolution of reality tv, it’s almost inevitable. Also, the way this country is going, it would not be that far a stretch to see the government taking a liking to game show executions as a way to deal with prison overcrowding. It’s so cost effective.
I think I would best describe this author as being a genius and this short story ingenious, creative and a really fun read.”
5 out of 5 stars
A Daring and Triumphant Short Story.
This review is from: The Wheel of Justice (Kindle Edition)
The most effective short stories leave a mark on your imagination long after you have read them. I suspect Mr Livingston’s The Wheel of Justice will linger in my mind for quite some time to come.
This biting satire involves a game show that gives new meaning to the phrase life or death. What drew me most into this story was the writer’s willingness to experiment with form – throughout the show we are also presented with the intervening advertisements – all of which had me laughing both uncomfortably and hysterically.
I won’t say too much more about the story as I don’t want to give the writer’s ingenious idea away. But needless to say, if you are interested in terrifically written dark satire, you must read The Wheel of Justice.
Recycling – this was an interesting piece; on its surface, there was a great deal of “the children are being indoctrinated” rhetoric – with which I actually agree – but there was another layer to this morality play. Recycling can be literal, or it can be figurative, and it is important to remember that it never hurts to do what one can to maintain a healthy living space – physically AND emotionally.
The Waster’s Tale – while many of these stories are written in “dialect,” at least in part, this first-person POV story is written with a strong “accent” that makes it quite interesting to read. Maybe not terribly easy to read for those of us across the Pond in the US, but interesting. The story is basically told by a guy who likes to stay wasted, describing a 24-hour period in his life.
The Wheel of Justice – What happens when the death penalty becomes entertainment? What type of game show would be best suited to this? “The Wheel of Justice” gives one possible answer to that question. I was interested in the world from this story – I think it would be interesting to see a full story set there, exploring how the world got this way, what the rest of society is like, etc.
She Won’t Call – the conversation of two young bachelors as one tries to find love. Quite amusing ending.
A Cataract of Breaking Glass – the sound of breaking glass is the sound of a broken heart. Incredibly sad story, beautifully written.
Come Dancing – very short and well-written piece of erotica.
The Farmer’s Right Arm – the wonders of modern technology or the evils of genetic manipulation? The reader is left to make his or her own decision.
Jaipur Gems – a vacationer in India is given a great opportunity … or is it? Wonderful descriptions.
The Adventures of Freddie the Moth – like “The Metamorphosis” only with a moth.
Work Abroad – a very difficult story, based upon what I have heard to be true, about how young girls are lured from their home countries with the promise of new jobs and new lives abroad … only to be enslaved. Wonderfully told.
The Tell-Tale Trunk – homage to the master, Edgar Allan Poe.
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