Title: What If
Author: Joseph Ingerson Mahar
Publisher: Bellevue Publishers
ISBN: 979-8-3485-3542-1
Pages: 117
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Reviewer: Jason Lulos
Hollywood Book Reviews
Imagine sitting at the table while your mother makes pancakes as she deftly plucks a fly out of the air and eats it. Or imagine you live a hermit-like existence making small animal figurines and your artistic creations begin to come to life. These are the kinds of inventive magical realism you will find in What If by author Joseph Ingerson Mahar.
What If is a collection of cleverly crafted short stories, each with its own unique fantastical spin. Although there are shades of Serling and Bradbury here, Mahar has his own style. One might draw allusions and metaphors from these stories, as is often the tendency in works of science fiction. And with Mahar being an entomologist, there is some science here. But overall, these stories feel like sudden flights of the imagination. The title of the collection perfectly sums it up: “what if” reality is suddenly interrupted by something fantastic?
The notion of “finding the extraordinary in the ordinary” is a common theme in this collection. “Looking Back” is a short, perfectly crafted story. It is quite simply about a man, Ethan, reflecting on his life after his daughter’s graduation party. This story has the tone and eerie nostalgia of Ray Bradbury’s short stories. It is short but quite poignant. “Benson Road Getaway” ventures more into science fiction. But again, it begins with an ordinary drive home and turns into an extraordinary encounter with a mysterious being. What makes the stories particularly engaging is the subtle way with which the author shifts from the ordinary to extraordinary. The author adds a note of magical realism wherein the characters are realistically reacting to the crazy “what ifs” that befall them.
This subtlety is noteworthy in “Morning Mad Mother,” wherein the narrator wakes from a troubling dream into a reality that is just slightly off. Thus, it begs the question of whether he’s awoken into an alternative universe or has slipped into another dream. “Morning Mad Mother” could also just be a story about the narrator’s mother simply going mad. Ripe for interpretation.
There’s not a bad story in this book, but I won’t discuss them all. However, “Old Man in the Woods” needs to be mentioned because it could easily be an episode of The Twilight Zone. An old man, whose wife left him decades ago, lives like a hermit and spends his days making small animal figurines in his shop. The old man and his store function in a “limbo kind of existence.” He has limited interaction with others, and lives by routine. When a seemingly innocuous thing such as a woman asking for directions interrupts the old man’s routine, a gradual butterfly effect occurs. When his figurines come to life, as magical as that is, the plot is driven by the fact that this man’s routine has changed. Again, a seemingly ordinary thing made extraordinary. This change leads to other changes and the whole story, while firmly remaining in a twilight zone atmosphere, leads to the old man’s life coming full circle.
I thoroughly enjoyed each story in What If. The author is quite adept at blurring the line between fantasy and reality in a way that makes the reader wonder if the events are actually occurring, metaphoric, or psychological tangents and dreams. The stories are page-turners: highly entertaining and thought-provoking: as all good science fiction and magical realism ought to be. If you’re into these genres or just a great bit of escapism, give this collection a look.