Review: When Violence Overtakes Us
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 13, 2012
The stream of consciousness technique used in the first story, "Shades of Grey", is highly effective for showing us the experience of a captured UK black ops agent.  He's not a very sympathetic character, but neither is anyone else described in the story.  That's very much the point of it.  He's what passes for ethical in the context of black ops which requires people who are willing to do whatever it takes to complete an assignment.  He's very critical of other black ops agents for enjoying violence too much, but he's no paragon of virtue himself.  I wondered about the location of this story's events.  It could have been in Ireland or somewhere in the UK itself.  The protagonist mentions at least one mission within the UK.  I remember thinking while I was reading this story that the protagonist could just as easily have been a mercenary.  Mercenaries seem very similar to black ops agents.The second tale in this anthology, "There and Back Again" takes place during WWII.  The central character, James, was rather bland compared to other characters in this anthology.  James' war experience causes him to think differently about courage and cowardice.  His fellow combatant, David, is much more complex.  David is along the lines of the black ops agents in "Shades of Grey", but he has survived a difficult past which makes him somewhat more sympathetic.I would categorize the last of these stories, "Down The Rabbit Hole" as a horror tale.  I don't think it's about domestic abuse as other reviews have said.  The horror element surfaces much earlier in the story.  I've seen other similar situations in the horror genre.  Like the previous two stories in the anthology, it deals with crossing the line ethically.  Where should that line be drawn?  What happens when the person deciding whether the line has been crossed is a child?  I think that another theme that this story shares with the others is that violence begets more violence.  If countries have black ops teams, their antagonists escalate in response.  The same thing certainly happens in war.  In "Down The Rabbit Hole" the violence that begets more violence is incubated within a family.  When the violence escalates, no one can predict what the consequences will be.  It's hard enough for an adult to be faced with such a situation.  The responsibility would have to be staggering for a child who must figure out how to deal with what seems to be like a juggernaut that he is helpless to control.  Fortunately, this is a remarkably tough child.  I would agree with the reviewers of this anthology who consider "Down The Rabbit Hole" the best of the lot.  This story's placement provides Shades of Grey with a strong finish.