Collapsible Horizon
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(click to visit the store. 12 plus shipping)
or buy the e-book from Kindle for 3.9
or directly for a signed copy, same price
Review in The Collagist by Yuryi Tarnawsky
Review by James Claffey
Review by Bari Kennedy
Review by Allen Taylor
Review by James Claffey
Review by Bari Kennedy
Review by Allen Taylor
A collection of short stories, all refracted angles, kaleidoscopic reflections adding up to the narrative.
They move the reader through a passage, squeezing his arms to his sides. It's like when you stand in a doorway, pressing the backs of your wrists against the frame. When you walk out of it, your arms rise in the air on their own. The Event Horizon in a wormhole, as it reaches the singularity, turns all the rules of physics upside down, shakes them up, and makes fiction out of them as they collapse.
“Collapsible Horizon is a dazzling collection of fiction peopled with characters you can relate to and situations forged from realities and dreams. In clear, luminous prose, Tantra Bensko, inventor of Lucid Fiction, never misses a beat. Each story sucks you down the rabbit hole into a world you can’t help but explore.”
Steven Gulvezan, The Dogs of Paris (March Street Press)
"Tantra Bensko invented her own genre and way of telling stories. She is a singularity, the center of her own narrative gravity, and Collapsible Horizon is her best collection of short fiction yet."
Kyle Muntz, Voices, VII (Enigmatic Ink) and Sunshine in the Valley (CCM)
Steven Gulvezan, The Dogs of Paris (March Street Press)
"Tantra Bensko invented her own genre and way of telling stories. She is a singularity, the center of her own narrative gravity, and Collapsible Horizon is her best collection of short fiction yet."
Kyle Muntz, Voices, VII (Enigmatic Ink) and Sunshine in the Valley (CCM)
" She does it similarly to the way cubist painters represented three-dimensional objects in the two-dimensional space of a canvas, by breaking their surfaces up into their constituent parts and arranging them in a visually interesting way, creating works of art rather than images of reality."
Read Review in The Collagist by Yuryi Tarnawsky
author of books such as Short Tails JEF Books/Civil Coping Mechanisms/Depth Charge Publishing
"There is no uncertainty with the way that Tantra Bensko layers her words, one rolling on top of another, until they fill your heart and mind with an isolated bliss. I highly recommend that you buy this collection."
Read Review by Bari Kennedy
Amazon Review: "When you step into the Collapsible Horizon, the first thing you notice is a parade of wonderful Yard Men, Frogs, Lizards, Donkeys and Goats all herding down a shadowy passage which leads to the Uncertain House. Within its mirrored walls, you will find a twisted maze of wonderfully written stories, all of which will lead you towards an elevated center of consciousness.
This is truly Bensko's world, who, with the hands of a master wordsmith, takes you on a magnificent tour providing artful, clear interpretation. Through her words you can experience a reality that has been rearranged with random logic into new and beautiful images that are simultaneously alien to this world yet oddly familiar. Be prepared to feel as though Federico Fellini was whispering vibrant word images of color and light into your head.
What gives strength and muscle to this unique work of art, is the steady hand with which it was written. The author writes with the clarity and confidence of someone who clearly understands the magic of words. My advice to you: READ this book...it will without a doubt...expand your horizons." Paul Barnett
Amazon Review: "I've been following this author for awhile now...about 4+ years. She is truly, hands down, one of the most eclectic, creative, fearless writers I've ever come across.
I rate an author by how much they can pull me outside of my box in thinking and the emotional 'draw-in' I'm provided with. One thing I can say here, Ms. Bensko has put me on some magic carpet rides I never thought possible.
The book may look simple enough on the outside, but once opened, once read...it gets multi-faceted and intriguing right away. Her introduction alone had me gripped. I knew I just made a special find like no other.
My book is amazing! It's special to read alone, AND, I've learned how much I like reading it with other people. Watching other's body language is priceless. I love to read a line or two and then watch faces contort in amusement and astonishment. The visuals that dance across the mind will give you dreams for weeks. You can thank Tantra for that!
This is some of the best money I ever spent ~ BUY THIS BOOK! BUY 10!, as everyone will be proud of you that you've expanded your literary mind. " --Tiffany Millerbis
Amazon Review: "Lyric prose conjuring surreal images of the eternally shifting emotional landscapes we each wander alone. Reading Tantra's poetic explorations makes me feel like I have a companion in that inner place, so private, exploring life and death and the ever changing whole." -- Lynette Yetter
Read Review in The Collagist by Yuryi Tarnawsky
author of books such as Short Tails JEF Books/Civil Coping Mechanisms/Depth Charge Publishing
"There is no uncertainty with the way that Tantra Bensko layers her words, one rolling on top of another, until they fill your heart and mind with an isolated bliss. I highly recommend that you buy this collection."
Read Review by Bari Kennedy
Amazon Review: "When you step into the Collapsible Horizon, the first thing you notice is a parade of wonderful Yard Men, Frogs, Lizards, Donkeys and Goats all herding down a shadowy passage which leads to the Uncertain House. Within its mirrored walls, you will find a twisted maze of wonderfully written stories, all of which will lead you towards an elevated center of consciousness.
This is truly Bensko's world, who, with the hands of a master wordsmith, takes you on a magnificent tour providing artful, clear interpretation. Through her words you can experience a reality that has been rearranged with random logic into new and beautiful images that are simultaneously alien to this world yet oddly familiar. Be prepared to feel as though Federico Fellini was whispering vibrant word images of color and light into your head.
What gives strength and muscle to this unique work of art, is the steady hand with which it was written. The author writes with the clarity and confidence of someone who clearly understands the magic of words. My advice to you: READ this book...it will without a doubt...expand your horizons." Paul Barnett
Amazon Review: "I've been following this author for awhile now...about 4+ years. She is truly, hands down, one of the most eclectic, creative, fearless writers I've ever come across.
I rate an author by how much they can pull me outside of my box in thinking and the emotional 'draw-in' I'm provided with. One thing I can say here, Ms. Bensko has put me on some magic carpet rides I never thought possible.
The book may look simple enough on the outside, but once opened, once read...it gets multi-faceted and intriguing right away. Her introduction alone had me gripped. I knew I just made a special find like no other.
My book is amazing! It's special to read alone, AND, I've learned how much I like reading it with other people. Watching other's body language is priceless. I love to read a line or two and then watch faces contort in amusement and astonishment. The visuals that dance across the mind will give you dreams for weeks. You can thank Tantra for that!
This is some of the best money I ever spent ~ BUY THIS BOOK! BUY 10!, as everyone will be proud of you that you've expanded your literary mind. " --Tiffany Millerbis
Amazon Review: "Lyric prose conjuring surreal images of the eternally shifting emotional landscapes we each wander alone. Reading Tantra's poetic explorations makes me feel like I have a companion in that inner place, so private, exploring life and death and the ever changing whole." -- Lynette Yetter
More about it at LucidPlay Publishing
Beginning of the first story:
Yard Man
The leaves, crisp with drought. Summer's crashing, crunching down was unmitigated by reds or yellows. There was no pretending anything but winter, later, stark and cold.
A thin man with a tall, tall hat came to the door selling yard hats, and yard triangles, yard purses, yard sticks, and yard gnomes. He dragged them in a bag behind him on the ground, sweating, but keeping a bounce to his small, even steps. “I notice your yard, Sir,” he said with a slight croak that brightened at the end, “needs something to make up for all this brown, doesn't it? Something different to liven it up. Sell you any of these?”
He took out one of each of what he carried, and arranged them on my porch, so quickly it seemed as if they were suddenly just all there, with no linearity or chronology at all. They spread out on my porch like a stained glass window.
I had never thought much about any of these yard things before, much less how they went together to form a whole, how they fit with my yard, how my porch had developed a more recursive connection with my life, how yard triangles related to the color brown, or how I was supposed to react in a situation like this.
The man looked sort of bug-like, his mouth sunken in with a lot of wrinkled lines going to it, like arrows pointing to his mouth, saying---food goes in here! Put more food here! He opened his mouth to speak, and my attention was taken by what that did to the arrows. I had to think back on it to remember what he said.
“I'll give you a special deal if you buy one of each.” His mouth stopped talking. The arrows moved around, as he chewed a bit on subconscious anxiety, his jaw moving back and forth. He swallowed, awkwardly, and the arrows became more adamant about how they were talking about: the Inside of his mouth. Down in There!
The leaves, crisp with drought. Summer's crashing, crunching down was unmitigated by reds or yellows. There was no pretending anything but winter, later, stark and cold.
A thin man with a tall, tall hat came to the door selling yard hats, and yard triangles, yard purses, yard sticks, and yard gnomes. He dragged them in a bag behind him on the ground, sweating, but keeping a bounce to his small, even steps. “I notice your yard, Sir,” he said with a slight croak that brightened at the end, “needs something to make up for all this brown, doesn't it? Something different to liven it up. Sell you any of these?”
He took out one of each of what he carried, and arranged them on my porch, so quickly it seemed as if they were suddenly just all there, with no linearity or chronology at all. They spread out on my porch like a stained glass window.
I had never thought much about any of these yard things before, much less how they went together to form a whole, how they fit with my yard, how my porch had developed a more recursive connection with my life, how yard triangles related to the color brown, or how I was supposed to react in a situation like this.
The man looked sort of bug-like, his mouth sunken in with a lot of wrinkled lines going to it, like arrows pointing to his mouth, saying---food goes in here! Put more food here! He opened his mouth to speak, and my attention was taken by what that did to the arrows. I had to think back on it to remember what he said.
“I'll give you a special deal if you buy one of each.” His mouth stopped talking. The arrows moved around, as he chewed a bit on subconscious anxiety, his jaw moving back and forth. He swallowed, awkwardly, and the arrows became more adamant about how they were talking about: the Inside of his mouth. Down in There!