THE NEWSPAPER GIRL - Colton Balvanz


 Many years ago Amazon created something called "Kindle Worlds" which was essentially a legitimate means of publishing fan fiction. The idea was that certain works of fiction were licensed by Amazon so that authors could write fiction in the world(s), and using characters created by the original author. Sort of like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead but from more current works.

There are many fans sites on the internet that already do this, but Amazon, being the giant that they are, got a lot of attention for this, and presumably saw this as another means of generating income for the company.

I spent a little bit of time looking through the list of 'books' (actually, most were short stories) to see if there was anything that appealed.  Stories spun from works that I knew well? The closest I could find was this, "The Newspaper Girl" by Colton Balvanz - a short story using a minor character from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughterhouse-Five. 

Debbie Fisher was the young newspaper delivery girl who worked for Kilgore Trout. Ever since her father left without notice, abandoning Debbie, her mother and her sister, Debbie has worked hard to provide and will do anything for her sister.  But when she doesn't get to take a promised vacation she quits her job. Then her sister dies.  then her mother dies.  Then her father returns, explaining that he's been time-traveling. But of course he's just crazy and Debbie has him committed.

The story ... the story had potential, but the writing was weak. I can't tell if the author was trying to copy a specific Vonnegut style (I don't know my Vonnegut well enough to talk about his style) or if the author was trying to create this with a specific, unique voice, but I can say that it didn't click for me. It was like reading a college freshman's first story in Fiction Writing 101.

It's easy to see why the Kindle Worlds program didn't last - I couldn't find anything I wanted to read, and the one story I chose really didn't satisfy.

The Kindle Worlds program was discontinued in 2018 and there's no sign of this story on the Amazon website anymore.

Looking for a good book? "The Newspaper Girl" by Colton Balvanz is a short story based on a minor character in Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughter-house Five. The concept is fine but the execution suffers.

2 stars

* * * * * *

The Newspaper Girl

author: Colton Balvanz

publisher: Kindle Worlds

Kindle Edition, 15 pages

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