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​book reviews

The Bittersweet Song of Canary                           By Matthew Fish

6/29/2019

8 Comments

 
Multi-genre, multi-volume author, Matthew Fish introduces us to his dystopian sci-fi story, The Bittersweet Song of Canary:
Around two-hundred years have passed since a great cataclysm struck the Earth. A young girl named Canary is part of a settlement attempting to rebuild and learn about the past. While dealing with a human life that seems to have devolved over the long passage of time, Canary desperately dreams of escaping to the stars high above to a mysterious place called Haven. However, her dreams may be her downfall.
Picture
I found this story about a post-apocalyptic, primitive civilization on earth to be very interesting. The struggle for survival was anything but guaranteed, the remnants of the previous high-tech civilization were useful. The author did a good job of setting this scene and allowing the people to scrap and scrape for their livelihood. The dialogue was enjoyable, the action was very dramatic at times. I love the First Person POV, when it is done right and Matthew is great.
I give The Bittersweet Song of Canary a score of 4.8 stars. 
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You can buy this book:
https://smile.amazon.com/Bittersweet-Song-Canary-Matthew-Fish-ebook 
https://www.goodreads.com/-the-bittersweet-song-of-canary 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bittersweet-Song-Canary-Matthew-Fish-ebook 

You can follow the author:
https://twitter.com/Matthew_MFish 
https://www.facebook.com/people/Matthew-Fish 
 
Copyright © 2019 Mark L. Schultz except for the author’s introduction 
8 Comments
Matthew Fish link
7/2/2019 12:26:08 am

Hello! Thank you for the kind words and the very well written review! Writing 'The Bittersweet Song of Canary' was an extremely unique experience for me as I love constantly changing genres and I found this one both very challenging and rewarding.

Reply
Mark
7/2/2019 09:28:00 am

You are welcome, Matthew.
Please, tell us a little about yourself. Perhaps something a little bit beyond your bio.

Reply
Mark
7/3/2019 05:13:31 pm

Matthew has lived through a terrible windstorm. Many trees are down and he has no power. He will rejoin us when he can.

Reply
Matthew Fish
7/8/2019 01:35:22 am

Hello, sorry for the extended absence! The weather here has been absolutely terrible lately. A little bit about myself beyond the standard bio is that I also work as a photographer and in graphic design--I love being outdoors and travelling, since I mainly work from home I am able to schedule long periods of time to go and explore the country. I am very much into minimalism and the idea that people should place value on experiences rather than material things.

Reply
Mark
7/8/2019 10:34:45 am

Welcome back, I assume you must have things under control and the power has been restored. Congratulations. That had to be a lot of work.
New questions.
Are you a full-time or part-time writer?
What inspired you to write this book?

Paullett Golden link
7/5/2019 12:15:56 am

Sending Matthew positive thoughts after the storm! I'll leave him a question for when he returns:

What sort of research did you do for the story? I would think maybe some psychology would come into play, maybe some survival techniques.... I'm always curious what goes into the preparation for a book. The research for a post-apocalyptic story must be fascinating!

Reply
Mark
7/5/2019 11:24:12 am

Thank you for stopping by, Paullett. Matthew will see this eventually.

Reply
Matthew Fish
7/8/2019 01:52:18 am

Hello Paullett! Thank you for your question! For this particular book I actually did research on The Great Depression and prior cultural ideals that are now considered pretty outdated. When I have a story idea, it is very important to me that the end product is distinctly unique. When straying into the post-apocalyptic genre I did not want it to read as a traditional novel in the genre so I made the world both a little modern and also quite backwards. I looked at old cultural ideals that children could be considered as both labor and commodities and worked that into my post-apocalyptic novel. So ultimately, I did not research much in regards to survival techniques and in terms of psychology I did do some research into cult mentality--which does also play a role in the story. Which, hopefully, combines a bit of old and new to create something interesting!

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