Each story is very different from the others in this collection of eleven short stories by Martin Jones. Several deal with life and relationships in the contemporary world. In Dream Mightily, the lead character is given the opportunity to redeem his life thanks to a case of mistaken identity. A chance encounter in Meeting the Payzaks leads to an indictment of the destructive excesses of modern life. Two of the stories are set in the future and verge on science fiction. In Long Journey, a 150-year-old man discovers that the world still offers him moments of such transcendence that life remains worth living. The title story, The Gentleman Lion, is the longest and most complex and also a fitting tale on which to close the book. |