Aliens are among us
Undoubtedly, the author of the book is familiar with scientific spheres, as he is a doctor by profession. Thus, one can find threads in his texts that at least refer to this area. The content presented to us in “Pale Coats” is to entertain us, to mock the development of civilization and coexistence (including symbiosis) with aliens. From the point of view of an outsider, we learn about the consequences of medical and technological experiments. Is it actually such a fun? Marcin Pełka is a fan of short and humorous stories, but unfortunately I did not laugh too loudly while reading.
Our adventure begins here
“Pale Coats” has twenty-one short, independent stories. These less than 260 pages may turn out to be a one-time trip for us. But will it be so ravishing that you won’t be able to tear yourself away even to take a short walk to the kitchen to make another cup of tea? She wasn’t for me.
The author wants to present us with a futuristic vision of the world and is trying very hard, but I was not entirely convinced by this. The stories are written correctly and there are even a few that I got into for a moment. Moreover, in my opinion, they are quite original, despite the fact that they bring up a completely reworked topic.
So what was missing?
Reading some of the stories, I had the impression that someone had cut out a fragment of a longer text, thus playing a trick on the readers. At the cost of this, some things didn’t seem to make sense to me, and I couldn’t understand the point of the situation. It is a pity, because if we develop some of these stories, the end result could be much more interesting.
The second important point is the fact that the characters did not arouse any emotions in me while reading them. And that’s a big minus! To a large extent, this is a consequence of the length of the stories (most of them are only a few pages long), here I lacked clarity. Dialogues, which I have often perceived as not very real, are also to blame for this feeling.
summarizing
While reading, I had an overwhelming impression that it is not the quality but the number of texts that has priority here. It is known that each collection of short stories has both better and worse stories. The “pallor of coatings” remains rather stable, at an average level. It is not a book that I would recommend feverishly, but if you have nothing else on the horizon, it may be a bit of a pleasure.
