Mysterion, September 2026
“Between Static and Heaven” by Michael A. Reed
Reviewed by Mina
“Haloman” by Tao Yuan is fun. We meet a large Welsh family. The father, George, is defending his son’s chemistry teacher, who is accused of giving away the exam results. But then he grows an embarrassing body part.
The story is a lovely commentary on how our world would never know what to do with a real saint, and on a father’s love. And the humour is wonderfully understated.
My favourite line is the narrator commenting that his mother was Welsh and so “understood the bitterness of life.”
“Between Static and Heaven” by Michael A. Reed is grim—it could be renamed between hell and hell. It’s set in a dystopian world and we meet a brother and sister trying to survive in the Expired Zone. Yes, it ends as well as you would expect with a name like that.
Hearing your dead loved ones from an old transistor radio is intriguing (which reminded me a little of the film Frequency), but you will need a stiff whisky after reading it.