After reading the excerpt of the book and decided to purchase "Illuminations" by Alan Moore. As a fan of his work, I was excited to see him delve into a collection of short stories. Each story had a different feeling and approach, with "What We Know About Thunderman" almost dominating the book. Unfortunately, this was my least favourite and could have been released on its own. Overall, it's a very good book, and I look forward to his future releases.

Absolutely excellent. The greatest comic book writer of all time also turns out to write amazing prose? Not fair. If you like Gaiman then this is in the same league.

Alan Moore is a master storyteller and these stories don't disappoints as they're intriguing and well written.
Wish I could read the entire book

Illuminations by Alan Moore contains nine stories ranging from short stories to novella length. These stories encompass the last 40 years of writing and are representative of Moore's approach to storytelling. There were two stories my my free e-book, 'Cold Reading' and Improbably 'Complex High Energy State.' Both were highly entertaining and enjoyable character-driven immersive reads, and both piqued my interest in the remaining stories.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for a free e-book.

So I'm not usually into short stories but I've heard many good things about Moore so thought I'd give this a go. I can't fault it for creativity, but it just wasn't the kind of book for me. If you're into contemporary-feeling supernatural stories then you'll enjoy this. I personally didn't connect with it but I know a lot of friends who would definitely vibe with it! Thanks you for the ARC.

I’m a massive Alan Moore fan, having read most of his work, and was very excited when his short story collection was originally announced around 18 months ago. I pre-ordered it instantly, and am waiting for the publication day. As I’m sure you can imagine, I was also over the moon to be given the opportunity to read two of the short stories in advance. The extract I’ve read contains ‘Cold Reading’ and ‘The Improbably Complex High-Energy State’. Both stories are completely different and show the varied style of Moore’s work.

The first story is about a fake psychic, Ricky Sullivan, who is arranging an appointment with a potential client, or a ‘vessel of light’ as Ricky puts it. The story is from the first perspective, giving you an inner working of the con-man as he tries to justify to himself why he does the work he does, despite no belief in the supernatural. He explains one instance of a possible ghost sighting he had as a child, and dismisses it a reflection. There’s books on his table to impress clients, but he debunks the pictures inside. The story is quite short, but has a nice twist at the end. You know somethings coming, and everything builds throughout the story to the nice ending, even if the twist is a little obvious. The hints towards the twist are excellent.

The second story takes place in the first femtosecond (one millionth of one billionth of a second) of the universe, and is a bit more on the strange side. The story is an odd tale of the rise and fall of a brain dictator claiming to be a God, that takes place all within that first femtosecond. It’s funny and very strange, to say the least. The language is a lot more formal than with ‘Cold Reading’, and reads more like a history text book in places. Once you realise what the story is actually about it all comes together and I was completely on board by a quarter of the way through.

Together the two stories were just under sixty pages and I absolutely raced through both of them. They’re both completely different, and if this is anything to go by then the actual collection is going to cover all types of subjects and stories. Alan Moore’s short stories are just as great as his comics, and if you’ve been put off reading his prose after his mammoth of a novel, Jerusalem, then it’s still worth giving this collection a go. ‘Cold Reading’ is easy to read, with Ricky being a great character, and ‘The Improbably Complex High-Energy State’ is a great fun read as well once you get into it.

I immensely enjoyed the two stories, and can’t wait to read more of the collection in October. It’s always great to read new things from Moore. His stories are full of wonder, imagination and whimsy. After this there will also be the Long London quintet from Moore, starting in early 2024. That should be very exciting.

Thanks Netgalley and Bloomsbury for giving me an extract in exchange for a fair review. As its an extract I can't in good faith give it a full rating at the moment but I have pre-ordered the hardback so get to it the moment it arrives.

The first story 'Cold Reading' was well-written on a nuts-and-bolts prose level, with the sentences flowing together smoothly. This being Alan Moore the POV character is so well-realised I felt I knew everything there was to no about them just from a few brilliantly chosen words and phrases. The only thing that let it down was the generic horror/ghost story it was attached to. I feel that I have seen this exact story in every ghostly/paranormal story anthology I've ever read. I knew exactly where it was going almost from the outset. Well written but uninspired.

However the next story 'The Improbably Complex High-Energy State'. Now we're talking! Imagine if you will that Philip K. Dick's mad rambling about Stanislaw Lem being a pseudonym for a group of other writer's was in fact true... now imagine the Soviet council in charge of Lem's output allowed Kurt Vonnegut a turn at the wheel. This is the story he would have produced. Funny, obscene and downright odd. I loved it.

Can't wait for the full thing.

I quite liked this extract, the writing is very creative and good, and I really like the whole supernatural aspect. The set of short stories are incredibly interesting, however, I’m not sure if this book is entirely for me as I couldn’t really connect with the stories entirely and I love books where I can—definitely give it a chance though as we all think differently of books, and it wasn’t bad. At all.

So I have read an early extract of this book and for me Moore does not disappoint. Having been a fan of Alan Moore and his writing for many years I was intrigued by the idea of a set of short stories.
Some stories worked better than others and as usual some are very deep and thought provoking. I am looking forward to reading the whole book when it is out.