Greg Hrbek

I initially only read Sagittarius, which was published online, and I found it haunting: a beautiful parable about the tension of having children that are atypical and the joy that they can bring. It was a perfect short story in pacing, in spare but beautiful prose and in rapidly drawn, immediately sympathetic characters.

I liked Sagittarius so much that I bought the collection. Sagittarius is certainly the best, closely followed by the ending story, Bereavement. Both use speculative elements show more sparingly to highlight unspeakable but universal human experiences.

Otherwise, I thought the stories were pretty good, and since I'm not a short story reader, that's honestly pretty high praise. I think Hbrek really understands the form: short stories are literary playground to pull out the weird stuff that you can't support for a full novel. Some of them are stuffed full of the sort of luxurious prose that would be too obfuscating to use for more than a dozen pages. Others employ literary hijinks, like non-chronologic storytelling that add a twist and a punch to a 40 page chapter. Hbrek also links his stories -- not just characters, but also themes, to good effect. As a result, there's something very satisfying about finishing the work. It felt like the emotional payoff for finishing a novel -- like I'd really gone through the normal emotional sequence of reading a book, despite the disparate themes, tones and genres. Overall, I'll keep an eye out for Hbrek in the future. show less

Not on Fire, but Burning by Greg Hrbek is a highly recommended genre twisting novel. It is part sci-fi, part thriller, part speculative dystopia and opens with a bang that should capture every reader's attention.

Skylar, a 20 year old college student, is babysitting when the incident happens. When she looks out of the picture window she sees a bright metallic object hit the Golden Gate Bridge. A mushroom cloud forms above San Francisco and radioactive fallout is everywhere. Skylar starts show more walking to try and get out and to her parents where she knows her beloved little brother, Dorian, is safe. No one knows what the object was, but some say the words "Air Arabia" could be seen on the object.

Years later Dorian is 12 and knows two things: he misses his sister and hates all Muslims. He is having dreams about a sister that seemingly never existed. She is not in photos. His parents say she didn't exist. Dorian knows she did because his dreams/visions about her are so real. He also dreams about killing Muslims.

In this future America, the country is divided into territories and all Muslims have been interned in the Dakotas, where the former inhabitants have been relocated. When the neighbor, a veteran from Gulf War III adopts Karim, a Muslim orphan from the internment camps and brings him to the neighborhood, introducing him to the neighborhood boys, trouble is bound to happen. Racial slurs slip out and prejudices are revealed, on both sides. Fear and grievances continue to multiply and build up between the Arab and Americans. Is the hatred and fear the two groups hold for each other real or the result of prejudices or incomplete information?

In Not on Fire, but Burning Hrbek has penned a well-written, thoughtful novel with a social conscious. The prose and insight into the psyche of each character is carefully crafted as each of them struggle with societal expectations, their own emotions, and the reality. The result is a multilayered novel that transcends genre. The one drawback for me is the switch between first and third person in the narrative. I found it disconcerting and this threw me off kilter for a good portion of the book. Since I had an advanced reading copy the transitions may be better noted or delineated in the final version.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Melville House for review purposes. show less

Hrbek sets [b:Not on Fire, but Burning|24869879|Not on Fire, but Burning|Greg Hrbek|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1428087955s/24869879.jpg|44518566] in an alternate reality in which 9/11 did not happen but a similar attack is perpetrated in San Francisco in another year. From its first page, this novel has a gripping squeeze on your heart and your mind. The fears it exposes are so visceral and relevant that you are almost standing in the room with Skyler as she witnesses the 9/11 style show more attack on the Golden Gate Bridge. And then you are somewhere else.

The strength of this novel for me was in the believablity of its characters. I understood and felt with Skyler, Dorian, Karim, Mitch and Will Banfelder. Hrbek did a great job of showing both sides of a complex situation in very human terms. He did what we always hope an author will do, he made me look at something I have contemplated before and see it in a new light.

If life is a series of decisions and choices, how many possibilities are there that any event might never happen or that any life might be lead in a different direction? Might we ourselves change something major by making some different decision ourselves. When we are faced with the most horrible situation, when we have gone down the wrong path, is there still always a good choice we can yet make?

I highly recommend this novel as one that will leave you thinking long after you have put it down.

My thanks to Melville House Publishing and the very talented author, Greg Hrbek, for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. show less

Hrbek employs a decidedly linear art form (the novel) to tell a fractal story, or stories rather, of a handful of characters who become dimly aware of their existence in one strand of the Multiverse, and aware as well of some of the infinite decision points and possibilities and outcomes that are happening to their other selves, in other strands of reality. It's a very ballsy book in that it begins with a character and outcome that are both highly dramatic, and charged with pathos...and yet show more this character doesn't even exist in most of the other realities depicted throughout the book. I enjoyed the novel a great deal for both its intellectual playfulness as well as its faith in the power of loving human connections, some of which remain powerfully fixed from one universe to the next. There is a lot of moral feeling here, and much to ponder about love, hate, obligation, and atonement. In some cases bitter enemies are close friends in other realities; in one case, a character atones in every possible universe for his wrongs, without exception; even though he is a good person his personal life choices come to an irrevocable decision point of knotty irrevocable guilt in every universe in which he appears. These narrative choices don't always reduce to completely logical outcomes but that didn't matter, it felt entirely ok when so much is unknowable about personal fate that some things would be left unexplained in the end. show less