Review: Wacky humor that provokes thought
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 2, 2013
From references to our modern life to fairytales that recreate a prehistoric world, these vignettes written by Oleg Medvedkov are more than simply ha-ha funny. They are thought provoking. The motto, "Keep your pants on. If you don't have pants, disregard" seems like an instruction written for a software program. It brings a smile to my lips exactly because it is expressed in such a matter-of-fact, dry manner.My favorite is the first vignette, Coin Toss. "I let my words hang menacingly in the air. The dragon under me shifted restlessly." It is a fairytale set in a prehistoric forrest. The hero, sitting astride a dragon and planning to carve a kingdom for himself, negotiates with trolls who are surprisingly clever, to the point of annoying him as they refuse to give in to his reasoning. The story explores the nonsensical aspect of faith, and the path to leadership in this seemingly primitive society, which stands, perhaps, for our own culture.I imagine the author sitting astride a dragon and planning to carve a kingdom for himself, a kingdom all his own where he gets to test our perceptions, turn them inside out, and get away with it somehow, because his writing is done with hilarious, wacky humor.Five stars.