What the critics have said

“...Bell’s stories, like his publication credits, have a distinctly international flavour — as evidenced by [this] haunting tale, set in a German cemetery. The Cruel Countess was published in The Third Alternative (a small English magazine) and in Bell’s first story collection, The Bumper Book of Lies. Two other stories from Bell’s collection are also recommended: Dream Me An Island (set in the Caribbean) and This Shining World (based on Maori myth).”
TERRI WINDLING:
The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (10th Edition), July 1997 (USA)

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“The Bumper Book of Lies by Chris Bell (Myty Myn, New Zealand) is a collection of very odd, occasionally fantastic stories including five originals. The stories were originally published in mostly UK magazines. Numbered and limited to 500 copies, and signed by the author. Nice production and an attractive, hefty little paperback of 251 pages.”
ELLEN DATLOW
(fiction editor of Omni and five times World Fantasy Award winner)

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“Sex, Lies, and Monsters
Chris Bell is a British writer and musician resident in Germany whose current book is published by a New Zealand firm. You might expect such a cosmopolitan résumé to be reflected in his stories, and you would not be disappointed. In The Bumper Book of Lies, the reader will encounter supernatural events among modern Maori (This Shining World); surreal Nashville bars (Multi Bob); Jamaican obeah resistance to exploiters (Dream Me An Island); and haunted Hamburg cemeteries (The Cruel Countess) — just to name a few. Exhibiting a tremendous facility with style and form, Bell can produce everything from vigorously plotted cyberpunk narratives (‘Skins Out!’) to whimsical daydreams (On Formosa Street and Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman). Powered by his torrid love affair with fantastic literature and pop music, Bell’s stories fully succeed in their stated intention of being ‘incantation[s] to summon an atmosphere, in the way the best songs and most potent perfumes can do.’ Highly recommended.”
PAUL DI FILIPPO, writer and critic, ‘On Books’, Asimov’s Science Fiction (USA), April 1997

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“The Bumper Book of Lies is gorgeous! Quite possibly the nicest small press publication we’ve seen in years.”
SALLY McBRIDE, co-editor, TransVersions (Canada), January 1997

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“Sometimes audacious and always literate, The Bumper Book of Lies contains a wide range of fascinating stories, dreams and other fictions. Chris Bell is a master liar.”
DALE L. SPROULE co-editor, TransVersions (Canada), November 1997

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“It’s a compilation of very well-written, truly imaginative short stories. I was incredibly impressed... For those who enjoy original, creative writing, I highly recommend this book of stories.”
KELLI J. SMITH, editor, Infidels & Popstars (US Del Amitri Fan Club Magazine), June 1997

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“...Lack of stylistic variety is hardly something you can accuse Chris Bell’s collection The Bumper Book of Lies of. This is a very different animal: in his introduction Bell talks about writing as a means of summoning up ‘an atmosphere, in the way that the best songs and the most potent perfumes can do’. This is writing that is first and foremost writing: Bell is a stylist... "Skins Out!" is a complexly structured and cumulatively powerful story about the conflict between humans (‘skins’) and cyborgs (‘reps’). Detail is sharply evoked. Other highlights include The Cruel Countess, The Locum, Yellow Rose and Detox Mansion (an afterlife fantasy in which the lead characters are Jerry Garcia and Frank Zappa)... One for reading in small doses: concentrated attention is required.”

GARY COUZENS, writer and critic, Zene (Britain), Winter 96/97

 

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“...the stories taste of Laphroaig, Maté tea and pearls (as in Brian Eno).”
RHYS HUGHES, author & critic [The Third Alternative/Zene] (Britain)

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“Smart collection of short fiction (some genre, some oddball). A nifty mix of previously published tales and new stuff, a wide range of eclectic literature, not unlike stories by Jonathan Carroll and his weirdly-SF, fantasy and horror ilk. A surreal hypnogogic point of view on the world and life. Fun on tour through the USA of urban mythologies. Plenty of wit and neo-Pythonesque humour abounds. The Bumper Book of Lies is a slick production, 500-copy collectors’ edition, signed by the scribe... Favourites here include a visit to a private yuppie London club in The Madagascar; a mystery link (?) between TV’s sexy chocolate ad and an RAF plane crash in Flake; chatty cockroaches spoiling a leg-over in Bob’s Date. Like Rob Rankin’s novel, The Bumper Book of Lies has suggested background music to enhance your reading pleasure. (Rating points: 8/10 = COOL).”
ZINE KAT, Dragon’s Breath, (Britain), October 1996

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“I’m having trouble trying to describe this book without reference to the blurb on the cover (‘twenty unlikely tales’)... The Bumper Book of Lies collates together Chris’s short stories from a variety of small press magazines, and intersperses these with a handful of new and previously unpublished tales. Chris’s writing is hardly what you’d describe as straightforward, or (dare I say it) ordinary — and is all the better for it. If you want light reading, simple entertainment, predictable plots, forget it. Chris Bell is a man with a passion for the English language; each paragraph, each sentence being finely crafted. My favourites were The Madagascar and Dream Me An Island. I enjoyed the sometimes unusual perspectives from which Chris views his subject matter, but personally wouldn’t describe all these works as ‘short stories’ as such. Descriptive essays; a series of snapshots of life with commentary. Possibly. But again hardly satisfactory. Perhaps the flyers got it right with ‘20 extraordinary stories’.”
GAVIN WILSON, editor, RQC, The Zine of Sci-Fi & Fantasy Short Stories (Britain), Winter 1996

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“I’m enjoying the book a great deal. I like Flake at the moment and Postcards From Nashville, Tennessee and I think The Madagascar is extremely well observed.”
DON MCGLASHAN, New Zealand singer/songwriter

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“He has earned a diploma for the twists he gives ordinary, everyday life in his stories. Shopping becomes an explosion of fruit for a London girl, hand-carved wooden figures develop character defects. These figures, a present from a friend, have graduated from the fireplace to become symbols of individuality... A man talks to his socks because they seem more reliable than people. Perhaps because all Bell’s characters are at the same time so tragic and absurd, something may, at any moment, lift their lives out of a rut. Socks, on the other hand, stay socks... The sentence Bell has figuratively hung over his bed originates from Frank Zappa: ‘Anything, any place, any time, for no reason at all.’ Feelings, he finds, are there to be followed.”

JUDITH WEBER, Hamburger Tageszeitung (Germany)

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“First up would have to be The Bumper Book of Lies, a collection of stories from the gifted pen of Chris Bell. Chris was the author of ‘Skins Out!’ in the last issue, and that’s just one of the gems you’ll find herein, along with nineteen others (yes that’s 19!). This is certainly a very impressive publication with top-notch production values, some quality finishing, and a quite excellent selection of tales to suit all tastes — and I don’t know if this is some sort of trend, but the author’s included a soundtrack list at the back, so you know just what music you should be listening to for that ‘mood effect’... loved the back cover!”

ALEX BARDY, Editor, Sierra Heaven (Britain)

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“‘Skins Out!’ by Chris Bell was well-written, with some believable characterisation and a grittily portrayed backdrop.”

PETER TENNANT, critic and editor, writing in Sierra Heaven (Britain), Summer 1997

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“Excellent! Enviable!”

WAYNE DEAN EDWARDS, Editor, Chronicles of Disorder (Britain)

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“The Bumper Book of Lies is excellent; I liked most of it and hated none of it. Can’t be bad.”

PETER JAMIESON SINCLAIR, Editor, Auslander (Britain)

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“Chris Bell is the author of The Bumper Book of Lies, a collection of twenty stories including The Locum, Yellow Rose and five other previously unpublished stories, together with fourteen previously published only in small press magazines from various countries. It adds up to 251 pages, in paperback format with an art board cover, with a colour dust jacket, printed on art paper throughout. It includes an introduction by the author and a fascinating ‘Recommended Soundtrack’ section and afterword. Although published at the author’s own expense in a limited edition of 500 copies, all signed, this is no ordinary small press publication but a fine first book, and it is recommended to anyone who enjoyed ‘The Locum’...[which] is published here on merit; we didn’t know about the collection’s existence when it came in, let alone that we’d be selling it. Chris Bell is now working on a novel.”

GRAHAM EVANS, Editor, The Edge (Britain)

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“The Bumper Book of Lies
[Review of the Mark I website]
You may recognise the name of author Chris Bell from the pages of NetGuide. One of our regular contributors, Chris is also a talented fiction writer and here presents a collection of short stories that will blow your mind. At this site you will find twenty unlikely tales from the deep recesses of imagination — if only we all were gifted with some. There’s also a recommended soundtrack to complement the stories. So, if one tickles your fancy, my guess is the album will knock your socks off.”

DANIEL WILLIAMS, MATTHEW BUCHANAN, LOUISE RICHARDSON (Editor), NZ NetGuide (New Zealand’s best-selling Internet magazine), Issue 20, August 1998

 

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“The longest story in this issue [of Not One of Us, issue #37, April 2007], Chris Bell’s  ‘The Locum, Yellow Rose’, is also perhaps the strangest, although there is no lack of empathy and recognisable motivation in the characters. Perhaps the most interesting character, however, is not the somewhat directionless narrator, nor his angry, dissatisfied ex-girlfriend, but the mechanical Betty Boop-like doll (the Locum, Yellow Rose of the title), which pulled the trigger on the failing relationship, and who speaks your innermost thought via a roll of ticker-tape. Needless to say there are secrets yet to be revealed, emotions to be learned, and tragedies yet to be lived before this story is told. Despite the genre, a deeply human story.”

JOHANN CARLISLE, The Future Fire, Issue 2007.09

 

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“Shem-El-Nessim by Chris Bell
As a child I loved everything about Egypt. The pharoahs, the mythology, The mummies, the pyramids, I was fascinated by all of it. Chris Bell has done a great job of capturing the essence of everything I loved as a child and putting it in an adult context. The central focus of the plot revolves around a mysterious fragrance and a haunting woman [who] leads our protagonist to Egypt. Another exceptional story.”

HARRISON HOLTZ’s blog, The Ostentatious Ogre: Impressions of PostScripts 18

 

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