The anthology “Spellbound – The Workings of DrugTech” by Marcel Sahade was published for the first time in 2020. The anthology “DrugTech – The Deep State Deepens” by Marcel Sahade was published for the first time in 2021.
A student who has trouble speaking without stuttering when he wants to ask the girl he likes for a date is helped by his parents, who work for the pharmaceutical company DrugTech. But what’s the connection between a barrister who hasn’t lost a lawsuit for 15 years, a pirate ship, and DrugTech?
This double anthology forms a single work composed of a series of short stories, often only a few pages long, which initially seem totally autonomous with different characters. The only thing in common seems to be that they end with a twist that shows the remarkable imagination of the author. However, after reading some of the stories, links start emerging showing that they’re parts of a bigger story as if they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Slowly, you can start seeing the big story linked to DrugTech, a pharmaceutical company whose managers have no qualms and decide which research deserves investments according to the income they can bring. Especially in the first book, only in some stories, it’s clear how central DrugTech and its policy are, as in many stories the company isn’t even mentioned.
You have to pay attention to the characters and situations of the various stories because only by going on with the reading you can understand certain details and grasp certain subtleties. This progressive discovery is a big part of the fun offered by the two books. In the second book there’s a greater sense of familiarity because, as the title suggests, there’s a deepening of what happens around DrugTech while maintaining the twists and turns.
The plots are key in the jigsaw puzzle created by the various stories in the larger story but there are also important characters. Marcel Sahade manages to offer good characterizations in very few pages thanks to well-placed details. This allows you to easily understand the motivations behind the characters’ behavior. Some of those characters become recurring and have real development.
Only some of the stories include explicit science fiction elements and in some cases, they go into the metaphysical, so someone could include this double anthology in the fantasy genre. Marcel Sahade has his own definition of science fiction which also includes magic. It’s a case in which genre labels are limiting, also thinking about the particular structure of short stories forming a jigsaw puzzle and the use of elements from other genres such as thriller and legal thriller.
In the and, genres and structure are used by Marcel Sahade as tools to explore various facets of human nature through the various characters. In the case of DrugTech and its executives, in particular, the dark sides of human nature are explored as drug research is funded thinking only of the potential income they can bring and there’s a constant attempt to increase the company’s influence.
This double anthology forms a work created with great attention and imagination. If you’re looking for an unconventional work that offers fun and at the same time food for thought, I recommend the volume that contains both books regardless of genre labels.
