Kaleidoscopes in the Dark

B.G. Rogers

B Press Publishers

Otago Daily Times, February 18th 2023

B. G. Rogers’ debut short story collection reminds me a little of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, vivid tales that twist the fairy-tale form in dark and disturbing ways. Some, such as ‘Great Grandmother’s Stories’, in which a young girl is hunted down by enormous seagulls who need human blood to digest the plastic that is their primary source of food, adopt a new and contemporary shape. Others, like ‘Tiger Food’, which gives a more realistic appraisal of what would happen if a tiger really came to tea, or ‘The Girl in the Pied Dress’, in which the Pied Piper is reimagined as a teenage girl burnt at the stake for attempting to save her contemporaries from the depredations of a predatory Laird, take familiar stories to unexpected places.

Strong female characters abound, and, although grim, the writing is shot through with flashes of humour and humanity, most notably from Death, who here adopts a female guise: my favourite piece, ‘Dating Life’, depicts her as a solo mother struggling to cope both raising two children – Truth and Fallacy – on her own and the frustrations of sharing an office with her ex. Kaleidoscopes in the Dark is a book not easily forgotten.