Spira Mirabilis

Eight stories loosely arranged around themes of timeless yet changing myths—with a connecting thread of a rabbi and his golem, who are introduced in the first story, “Emmett, Joey, and the Beelz”—make up this underwhelming collection from entertainment lawyer Sevush. Several of the stories are experiments of mashing genre with myth, but they are too busy being clever. Pieces are based on conceits such as the myths of Egyptian gods told through robots on a distant planet in “A Love of Mine,” or retelling Superman’s origin story as a Bavarian folktale starring Hitler in “The Firebird: A Fairy Tale.” Gilgamesh’s legend becomes a Weird West tall tale in “Mad Gilly and the Were-Bear,” and “Gods out of Time” changes Arthurian legends into a creepy Lovecraft-inspired piece. Several of the stories feel like setups for a joke that is never quite sprung, and some, including the first story, end in self-conscious punch lines that disappointingly distance the reader from the emotional core of the story. The collection manages to be both interesting and flat. (BookLife)