My Gladiator My Ghost, Part 1 and My Desire My Death, Part 2
By K.J. Babishov
My Gladiator My Ghost is the first part of an occult/romance short story in a series of short stories. My Desire My Death is part 2 in the series. I actually read part 2, My Desire My Death first and frankly I was glad I did because it was much better than part 1.
My Gladiator My Ghost finds Sophia (our heroine?) about to be released from Clarion Psychiatric Hospital where she was committed 10 years earlier; after being overdosed by her parents when she was 8 years old and having been dead for an hour before being brought back. (If you’re confused now, just wait.)
Over her 10 year stay she meets Nero, Queen Mary I, Hannibal, Martin Luther King Jr., Sir Isaac Newton, Joan of Arc, the Queen of Sheba, Lewis and Clark, Rosa Parks and …. well who knows who else. Oh, and Achilles and Hercules are regulars in her life with Achilles being her Gladiator and (I think) her ghost? (Well one of them anyway.)
Meanwhile Hitler wants revenge on America and Sophia is in love with Aaron, the son of a doctor at the hospital who she has grown up with.
Okay! On to the main plot! Ghosts don’t like being ignored and crave human interaction, which they can only get from Sophia because she died and came back. But, if she leaves the hospital, she’ll forget them and then they will solidify. (Become non-ghosts?) So, the solution is simple. Overdose her and bring her back to life again.
It’s at this point I got a migraine headache and quit trying to make sense of things. Frankly, I should have quit after part 2. The part 1 story honestly makes no sense and is so contrived it’s impossible to believe. For the stories’ characters, it’s like the author just thumbed their way through every history book they had ever read.
In part 2 Sophie is now married to Aaron and in her dreams, she runs into Hitler. Achilles and Hercules are still at her side and they not only rescue her but help guide her back to Aaron when something happens to separate them. (I don’t want to say any more as it would be a spoiler…If you can get this far.)
In addition to an unbelievable plot and characters, there are a lot of errors and spacing issues which didn’t help matters. It could do with a much better job of proofing.
In summary, the plot is weird, confusing and hard to follow in part 1 but gets better in part 2. The character selection is way out there, makes no sense, and adds only to the story being extremely hard to believe. Honestly, part 2 was much better than part 1 and held my interest even though the errors and spacing issues were distracting.
My recommendation is if you can get through part 1 and kind of make sense from it, part 2 is worth reading. Over all though, not something I would recommend reading.
Bob Boze
