The Distance Travelled By Brett Alexander Savory

The Distance Travelled By Brett Alexander Savory.



What is it with Brett A. Savory and pigs? Come to think of it,
even if you do know, I don't think I want to. Some things are
better left unexamined. Fortunately, that doesn't include
Savory's fiction. If you like your horror dark and twisted
and sometimes hilarious, he's your man. And here's an
added bonus: The Distance Travelled is the first one of his
stories I haven't felt compelled to give an NC-1 rating to; a
PG-13 will suit this one just dandy.

Here's the picture: you're sitting around one day in Hell,
minding your own business, when some low-life creeps
throw a live pig through your kitchen window. (Okay, I suppose,
technically, it's Hell's kitchen...) Now, that kind of thing doesn't
go down well up here among the living and it certainly isn't any
more tolerated in Hell. One can't just spend one's time running
willy-nilly about the house, dodging airborne livestock, really.

Well, the victim of this prank decides to track down the
perpetrators and that's when all... well, you know what breaks
loose. And let me tell you, the Underworld is not exactly like the
bible-thumpers would have you believe. It can even be barely
tolerable as long as your air conditioning unit doesn't give up
the ghost. Or, if you don't have to stop for a fill-up, because
if you're still bemoaning the demise of full-service gas pumps,
there's a character in The Distance Travelled that will shut
you up on that score. Permanently.

In order to solve the mystery of the barnyard missiles, our hero
must go to the most dangerous spot in Hell, the flame pit where
the nameless beast waits for crunchy treats of any sort. He must
also get within spitting distance of the most feared man in the
Underworld (and you'd be surprised to find out that isn't the
Big Red Fella) and find an opening that leads to the Upside.

In anyone else's hands, it could be sheer torture, but all this
means Savory is just getting warmed up. And damned if you
won't have a great time before this whole deranged ride is over.
And it will just whet your appetite for Savory's first-ever novel,
In And Down, which he has just finished.

Until that bent offering comes out, Savory has kindly and bravely
given us a peek into the past at a short story he wrote in 1984
at the "tender" age of eleven. Like many first attempts of good
writers it shows the ideas are there -- every idea he'd had up
until that point, crammed into one horrendous, hysterical mess.
Go ahead. He laughs at it, so can you. Think of it as a
before-and-after ad.