In this ambitious anthology, there are many Londons. And many possibly realities. And other places. Humans who transform into cats (or vice versa). An Egyptian god with the head of a lion and the passion of a satyr. Blood-sealed mystic circles. All are under threat, from deities ancient and awful and some wonderfully modern, in yer face creations which aim to unseat the established order. These are not separate stories, to be read in isolation or in any old order. Instead they’re an impressive collaboration, a melding of voices and imagination, each writer telling one or more chapters in a sprawling, bewildering contemporary saga of mythical proportion.

This is a substantial book, not a rapid read. Even on holiday, and able to devote big chunks of time to it, I found it hard to keep track of all the threads, to fathom where the myriad narratives and characters were going. Instead I allowed each chapter to present itself afresh: some showcasing a new person who arrives, enacts a morality tale and vanishes altogether – while others return time and again, their plots thickening around them into an increasingly chilling menace.

So definitely bear with the opening third of the book, which introduces myriad characters and sets them on their converging paths. Some of the stories don’t seem necessarily to contribute to the overall arc, but many overlap slightly, each casting a shadow elsewhere in the collection. By the final quarter it’s become an almost conventional quest novel, with the players assembled into distinct teams, and lines of combat drawn.

The ending perhaps doesn’t live up to the story’s early promise – perhaps too many characters in play, too many threads left dangling. I paid close attention but I’m pretty sure that a couple of choice characters simply vanished from the arc, their part in the tale left unfinished.

Even so, the majority of Red Phone Box kept me captivated. I loved the contrast in styles, the skill of the editors in blending it all together, the myriad in-jokes (‘indigo starfish’ indeed) and the accomplished interpretations of street-level London, and of the otherworldly low lives which might lurk between the seams. A great book to indulge in over a few days; monstrously more accomplished than the average anthology of short stories.
8/10

Find the full review at https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/the-red-phone-boxdarkly-mag... ( )

Complex weird, " a darkly magical journey" is quite an apt description! This is a shared world project collection of short stories all themed and unlike most such books, themed and styled to run from a long introduction to a specific conclusion. A multi-chapter novel but each chapter is written by a different author, with only a few getting 2nd or third pieces. As such it is surprisingly coherent, telling a complete story from the view point of a multiple of characters all caught up in the by-play between a few old gods.

In a multiverse of many possible realities there a few certainties, least of all the history f the one you live in. Most people don't realise that of course, and continue living their small lives trapped in only their world, but now and again, around specific nexuses (a cafe in london is central to our world) a few souls interact with a device that facilitates communication across the multiverse - a anachronism in today's age, The Red Phone Box. Their fates are varied, but then again so are the passions and desires that drive them, from greed and lust to romance and survival.

A long introductory world-building set of stories establishes the characters that feature more predominately in the final third, as some form of conclusion is reached. It does initially feel very disjointed with little sense of the final cohesion that will draw people and places together. But even in the start for those with a good memory there are many hints that foreshadow key people to come. A common approach is that an action of a previous story will have been observed by another character who takes their own narrative in their direction, but serves as enough of a link to keep the reader engaged with the world. There is no absolute good and evil sides, and most characters don't even comprehend there are sides that might be chosen.

Much like life, many of the tales are dark and at time uncomfortable, not everyone survives their encounter with the Box and the forces behind it. There's a couple of perhaps unnecessarily graphic sex scenes, and plenty of violence. But also joy laughter and the unrelenting wonder of the imagination let loose. Although all the gods' avatars are male there are plenty strong female characters who take control of their own lives independent of the relationships they enjoy.

Despite the vastly different characters and plenitude of authorial content, the writing style feels very consistent, much less varied than the differences between the characters. And once you're accustomed to the rapidly changing outllook you start to get a grasp on the complexities of the world, and the ints of the future that is to come/has been. ( )

The Red Phone Box was an interesting experiment. A whole bunch of authors wrote different chapters to this book. Some wrote only one, many wrote at least a couple. And Salome Jones is credited with editing them all to make a cohesive whole out of them. I think she was successful, though I imagine it is not a book for most people. As one might expect, the book starts off quite disjointed. The first several chapters don’t appear to have much in common, other than they are happening in London and seem to center around a Red Phone Box.

At some levels this appears to be a book of good vs. evil, and at times it might be evil against evil or just innocent people meeting sticky ends. But each chapter builds and adds depth to the world we are being drawn into and the story is emerging and sucks you in more and more. There are powers that be that have been around for millennia and most of them are using humans as pawns in an epic struggle for power and dominance.

There is a small group of heroes some of whom don’t even know what is going on or how important they are. They are brought together like the fellowship of the ring to fight the encroaching evil before it’s too late. There is a very good chance there is a bit of Dr. Who sprinkled throughout the book (the Red Phone Box!) I have not watched an episode for decades so I would not be able to point them out.

For those who have read a bit of the Eternal Champion series, (Elric, Count Brass etc.), this book has a lot of the same feel. At least once you start getting into it. This is just the first book in what is supposed to be a series. In some ways that is good because even after the climax there are still more questions than answers to what is happening/has happened. ( )