Wednesday 18 August 2021

Andy and the Octopuses - Isabelle Kenyon




‘ In a world of Elevated Intelligence, where octopuses are bred as computer-coding slaves, there are three types of people: the ignorant, the complacent and the activists.


Couch-bum Andy has received a promotion and a wriggling mass of tentacles as his new team. Suddenly, Andy is a breadwinner for six hungry mouths whose intelligence intimidate his own. He’d rather run from this new-found responsibility, than look into their watery pupils directly….’


This is a wonderfully surreal and amusing short story that somehow encapsulates much of what is both right and wrong in our Internet driven age. There’s something wonderfully hapless about Andy who gets where he is by not necessarily adhering to the whole truth and nothing but the truth! And for his sins he ends up with a team of six octopuses. No! I’d never read anything like it before either! But it’s just such fun. And yet interwoven within this uncanny storyline is an altruism from the protagonist that again touches on aspects of our contemporary life and the need to revere and nurture the natural world. The narrative is so convincing that you end up not finding it too weird to be conversing with octopuses and considering their physical and emotional needs as deeply as you do your own! 


Short, easy to read but a complete story with a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s an absolute delight. 


I bought my copy from Fly on the Wall Press. You can get yours there too.

Here’s the link.


https://www.flyonthewallpress.co.uk

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