Weekly Reader: Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity by Dave A. Neuman; A Surreal Bizarre Fantastic Trip Through Nightmares, Bad Memories, and Other Strangeness

 

Weekly Reader: Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity by Dave A. Neuman; A Surreal Bizarre Fantastic Trip Through Nightmares, Bad Memories, and Other Strangeness 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Dave A. Neuman's Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity is one of those types of books that is almost too surreal to be believed. There are moments that seem so disconnected from the reality of the pages of a book that I wasn't sure whether they were actually in the book itself or I dreamt it as being part of the book. 

It's a strange bizarre trip of a narrative but it is impossible to forget once it's over. It's one of those types of books that you will mull about for days wondering about the various moments and what they meant.

In 2011, solar flares drove South Australia, particularly the town of Adelaide into near chaos. Communication was down, electricity was erratic, and strange almost supernatural things happened. Among the people who lived through that strange event are Bob and Sue Triplow. 

After the weirdness passes, the two move to Corona, California, have a son named Joshua, and become regular members of the community. Twelve years  after the solar flares, weirdness follows the Triplows and everyone else, I mean everyone around the world. 

This introduction is fascinating as it draws from many unexplained phenomena stories that suggest that the solar flare encounter and what happens in the book are only the latest events in a long string of things that happened over time that are somehow linked together. 

Before we read about the Adelaide Solar Flares, we are told about a man in the Victorian Era who stepped back into Medieval Europe. It makes one wonder if in this Universe, many of these phenomena are part of this situation. Can we attribute the Bermuda Triangle, creatures like Bigfoot, Time Slips, UFOs, alien abductions, and ghost sightings to these events? The plot widens the scope and gives reason to the strange bizarreness, making these seemingly random global events not so random.

After the introduction, we get the first strange event in the narrative proper. Joshua and several of his schoolmates have tense nightmares of a strange man in a dark suit observing them. The nightmares are so prevalent that Joshua and his peers suffer through the day. They move sluggishly, are afflicted with dark circles under their eyes, and have no energy. They look and act like they went several rounds with Freddy Krueger during the night.

What is particularly compelling about these nightmares is that the mysterious man in black never does anything physical to these kids. He never even talks to them (except Josh begins to hear taunting in his head that might be from this nightmarish apparition). He sits next to them and takes notes as though he is studying and observing them for some unknown reason.

His presence is just enough to terrify them. It's sort of like the child who swears that the Boogeyman is in their room. Then Mom and Dad come in and say no that's just a pile of clothes, but he's not convinced

Only in this book's case, the pile of clothes really is a terrifying monster.

This by any means isn't the only strange thing that is happening. As the book continues, we are subjected to a lot of weird incidents around the world that seem unconnected but we later find out really are.

An Englishwoman spontaneously combusts. A township in Brazil just vanished. A house with a strange old man with a love of Louis Armstrong appears and disappears in California. An old man is mysteriously flattened to death. Around the world, people see these strange balloons and hear the sound of bells. Bob is tortured by memories of his abused childhood that seem to become real.

It gets to the point where while reading each page, the Reader is just waiting for the next strange thing to happen. It's like a surreal journey into a dream which starts normal and gets progressively weirder the deeper into sleep you go. Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity is one of those works that isn't so much a book as it is an experience. You have to dive right in and immerse yourself into what is going on.

Eventually, an explanation is given that is compelling and opens up other possibilities about alternate worlds, alien species, and science experiments gone awry. However, the explanation does little to help those that have to live with these disturbing events. 

Bob and Joshua in particular find themselves surrounded by a world that becomes so strange and nightmarish that it's hard to tell what is real and what isn't. 

Neuman deserves high praise for taking his Readers on this surreal journey that confuses and disturbs them almost as much as the characters. It's completely unforgettable and is one of the best books of 2022.