Dying By Numbers: A short story Kindle Edition

This is a short story but it is definitely well written. This story sucks you in and you can feel the emotions of the characters. It like you are right there with the main character going through what he was feeling. Definitely can’t wait to read more from this author.

Stronger. More description of the camp needed. Missing is the terror, the pain.. Was a child at that time, relatively safe but I felt the heavy darkness.

The story was very predictable and lacked any real originality. The only saving grace is that it was free. If you are a WW2 enthusiast, you'd enjoy it.

Book Review: Dying By Numbers
by Sam Kates
Reviewed by J Bryden Lloyd

Writing Style – 4.5/5.0 (Excellent)
The atmosphere is instantly obvious in this haunting tale, and the strength of the writing really stands out.
Although short, there is a lot of content in the story, managed brilliantly through a series of flashbacks and dialogues.

The dialogue itself is carefully balanced with very simple descriptive and a handful of good, basic characters.

An excellent read.

Character Development – 4.0/5.0 (Very Good)
Along with descriptive, character development is often lost in short stories, as you have to learn and understand a lot from a much smaller text.
This is not quite the case here, as the depth and intensity of the story focusses everything onto the characters and they each reveal an array of facets as the tale progresses.

Although some readers prefer the intricacies of a myriad of back stories, this offering simply doesn’t need them.

Descriptive – 4.0/5.0 (Very Good)
Descriptive is my love. I won’t deny that a good, all-round author with solid descriptive skills will always get more positives than negatives in my opinion (depending on subject content, obviously).
Here, I found that the descriptive was very “immersive”. Although lacking in specific, written scene-building or character descriptions, it was so easy to summon up the visuals from the proffered text… and what visuals they were, too!

Emotionally charged writing can do this effortlessly, and in this case, Mr Kates has struck home.
Very impressive.

Language & Grammar – 4.5/5.0 (Excellent)
I couldn’t see any errors. Certainly nothing in this stood out as a problem in any way.
The grammar and language use is excellent… perhaps a little simplified, but this only opens the story up for a much wider audience, and I can’t really blame the author for that.

Editing & Formatting – 5.0/5.0 (Outstanding)
Superb! Nicely built. Well edited.

Plot – 4.5/5.0 (Excellent) – NO SPOILERS
The simplest plot lines often carry huge power. This has to be one of the most direct plots I have seen in a short story recently, and it carries the reader along brilliantly.
The use of the flashbacks to replace the historic elements of the dialogue, is superbly done. Certainly this “story-within-a-story” carries all the weight and atmosphere of the piece, bonding the characters together perfectly.
As the plot unfolds, the interaction between the characters in the present seems to consume the emotion of the historical events and makes this into a fine, intelligent read.

General – 4.0/5.0 (Very Good)
Disconcertingly familiar cover art makes it clear where the content is taking you.
Personally, I felt a missed opportunity with the fonts being a little basic and, as seems to be the current trend, the author name felt large and over-bearing against a rather sparse backdrop.

The story content is strong and well-rounded; not too hard for the unwitting, but imaged as a powerful reminiscence for the character who has shouldered a burden for many decades.

Bold and Powerful. Five Excellent Stars.

From the title, this sounded like a murder mystery, but the cover conveys the truth. It’s short, maybe eighteen pages, but it packs so much in. A survivor of one of the death camps, with the help of his daughter, has found the daughter of one of his companions in the camp. One who didn’t survive.

For such a short story, this is complex and poignant. It packs so much into the present and the memories of the time in the camps. Things are never simple. Really well worth the short time it will take you to read. It’s free and gives you a real flavour of the author’s writing.