Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, December 2024

“Collaborators” by Michael H. Payne

Reviewed by Mina

“Collaborators” by Michael H. Payne is a light story on the surface, but with more substance beneath that. An author (her first persona, D. F. Teasdale), writing about her adventures (as her second persona, Jane Armstrong) in the guise of fiction, suddenly finds herself having to collaborate with her arch-nemesis, Hasdrubal, to write the next novel. Hasdrubal is a sphinx, arrogant and amoral, yet they strike up a successful writing partnership and the author begins to let her hidden third persona, Cricket, come through. And Hasdrubal shows patient understanding, leading to a real friendship.

This tale is about adventure, friendship among equals but also about the writing process and the power of fiction over the reader. The only thing missing for me was some more psychological depth, especially when one of the themes is a split personality disorder.