“The Last Days Of Kali Yuga” is the third short story collection from Melbourne-based New Zealander, Paul Haines. It’s published by Brimstone Press.

Paul Haines is an outstanding short story writer, a truly unique voice. His stories often feature a character called Paul Haines and it’s never really possible to know where the author ends and the character begins. And within these stories, Haines explores every dark, dirty, nasty facet of the human condition.

This book is the definitive Haines collection. All the uniquely Hainesesque “backpacker horror” stories are here, along with a broad range of other subjects, from the fantastical to the horrible to the downright human nasty and every combination thereof. We also have the dystopian sci-fi novella “Wives”, originally published in the awesome X6 Novella Anthology from Coeur De Lion Publishing. “Wives” alone is worth the purchase of this collection, it’s an absolute masterpiece of fiction, a work of art in storytelling. But you should really buy X6 and read the others in that book, too.

By no means, however, should that suggest that you don’t need to buy this book too. I’m not going to go into each individual story in the volume, simply because they’re all outstanding and need to be experienced. Each one is followed by a bit about it from Haines himself, talking about the inspiration or the development of the tale. It’s a fascinating insight into the artist and I wish more writers would include this kind of thing with their collections. All the stories are reprints, bar one unpublished piece – the last story, “The Past Is A Bridge Best Left Burnt”. This is the story that most blurs the line between the artist himself and the character, and is a work of genius.

You must read this book, because you’ll never read short fiction anything like that of Paul Haines. There will always be a part of you that wishes you never had read the short fiction of Paul Haines, but ignore that sensible and happy bit of your brain.

Everyone needs to explore the darkness. Everyone needs to experience the horror. Everyone should read Paul Haines.

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