Binding: Digital
Label: Amazon
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: Amazon
Number Of Pages: 19
Publication Date: 2007-05-18
Publisher: Amazon
Release Date: 2007-05-18
Studio: Amazon

The Train is the second story in a conceptual series I call the Subway Series. The first story, The Concourse is published in Falling from a Cloud, which should be available by July 2007. I attended school in the Boston area and spent a lot of time riding the “T” there. I always found it a fascinating dynamic as well as metaphoric.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Why was this Jason's last ride?
Comment: Jeffrey Howe has wrapped up fantasy, horror, atmosphere, tension, graphic compelling narrative, evocative description and a deep sense of chilly foreboding and wonder into this amazing little short he appropriately titled "The Train". I was transfixed. Howe's writing is so moving as to transcend mere narrative and evolve into free form poetry. Consider this gorgeous description of Jason embarking on his last subway ride:

"The Green Hill Station was deserted except for Jason. The evening was windy warm, pleasant, wafting an odd mix of luscious scents from a nearby Italian restaurant and the familiar subway sourness. He stood at the edge of the platform, for he heard the ringing of the tracks below indicating an approaching train. It was a metallic shearing sound that happened well before the train actually pulled into station. This was Jason's last trip on the subway. He was moving away in two days, leaving the city for the wider, open vistas of the arid southwest. He was trading in his straight, perfect canyons of glass, concrete and steel for those of sandstone, rivercut and windblown into dreamish shapes. He wanted to see the city again, to walk the streets again amid the honks and toots of traffic winding its way between silent towers whose inner lights create a Mondrianesque pattern against dark skies."

That author Howe is wildly in love with trains and train travel is obvious as his uncannily accurate depiction of the sounds, sights and swaying motions of the train rattling towards its unknown destination pull his readers aboard the train to ride along with Jason

Howe doesn't tell the reader why this is Jason's last ride and, indeed, therein lays the story. We are left to our own devices to determine who Jason is; why he is leaving the city forever; who the mysterious old man is that engages him in ambiguous philosophical conversation during the early part of the ride; where Jason thinks the train is going as opposed to where the train is really headed; where he is when he decides to leave the train before his ultimate destination; and, perhaps most important, who the lost little boy is that Jason finds riding the train without his parents.

Like many of the greatest Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episodes, we reach the end of the story without benefit of direct resolution but I know what I thought the answer was. Read it for yourself and I know you'll have your own feelings about what Howe was trying to tell us. A most enjoyable short story that I recommend without reservation!

Paul Weiss

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Intense ... in a cathartic way!
Comment: Since my earliest recollection, I've been moved by the sound of a train whistle crying out to me in the middle of the night. I don't know why, but it's a nostalgic feeling that fills me with an unnamed longing ... a longing for something lost in time and space. The lonely woo-woo sound reaches into my soul and touches the part of me that's always alone ... an unknown quantity in my life.

I can't describe the feeling adequately, but it's a mix between the "stomach butterflies" I get when nervous and the painful lump in my throat when sad. Does that make sense? Well, anyway, that's the way Jeff Howe's short story makes me feel: moody and full of wonder.

I'm left with a new appreciation of trains after reading The Train. These were awesome lines: << ... It was a metallic shearing sound that happened well before the train was actually in the station ... >> I can hear that sound. ... And in speaking of the desert where Jason plans to move, Howe says: << ... rivercut and windblown into dreamish shapes. >> Isn't that poetic?

Jeff Howe is an expert at setting mood, so much so that this story gripped me from the start. With each descriptive twist and turn I learned a little more of the main character Jason, and at story's end I wanted to know even more.

Alas, like the mysterious feelings I get when hearing a train whistle, some mysteries need to remain unsaid, unsolved ... We can get a sense of continuation by feeling.

And feel this story, I did! At the end, my first reaction was "Huh?" I felt like a train had hit me, leaving me hurt, bewildered and incomplete. Then silence grasped me and I felt a quiet peace settling in. The end of this story feels intense, in a cathartic way.

This is a brilliant piece of mood-setting writing. Bravo, Jeff Howe!

Reviewed by: Betty Dravis, 2008
Author of Millennium Babe: The Prophecy

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Losing your "train" of thought ...
Comment: Jeff Howe, in his short "The Train" takes the reader on an adventure. It is from the beginning not an ordinary adventure, but one filled with surprises and intriging twists. We try to know the main character, Jason, but find out that he is hard to know. It is at first revealed that perhaps Jason is an uncaring individual content to live in his own world. Yet, soon we find out that Jason is very caring as evidenced by his immediate concern for the little boy riding the train.

Through the course of this story Jason's emotions are thrown about. He must navigate through a complex maze of feelings brought by several, one after the other and seemingly unrelated, dramatic events.

Jeff Howe, in the end, ties the pieces together effectively and for me at least, lets us know that the train ride is never really over.

This is a story that spellbinds the reader into reading the next page. Good work, Mr. Howe. Five stars.

Reviewed by Charlie Moore

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Customer Rating:
Summary: TAKEN FOR A RIDE
Comment: Where author Jeff Howe really distinguishes himself is scene setting and mood. You start off thinking the protagonist is taking an ordinary train ride. Fifteen minutes later you're saying "get the number of that truck!" You literally don't know what hit you, You just know you've been hit...hard.

The ride and the fellow passengers seem to deteriorate by the minute, until with a chill down your spine you realize this is something quite different than what you first imagined. To pull off that illusion so superbly requires talent, lots of it.

Brilliant scene setting, beautifully orchestrated tension and fear. This train goes all the way after all. Bravo, Mr. Howe!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Twilight Train
Comment: Jeff Howe's "The Train" gave this reader a journey, an anxious "All Aboard" feeling from start to finish. Subterfuge, suspense, and daring to believe are unveiled by Mr. Howe's pen. One may look at twilight in another vain than normal after reading this puzzle of the mind. Great read.
Robert A Meacham

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