short story
Review 231: You Don’t Die of Love by Thomas Thonson
Writing about what you know and have experienced can be a great tonic to exorcise one’s demons while remaining authoritative at the same time. It can also turn into a self-serving rant. Thomas Thonson is a veteran of the Hollywood film industry and the theme of his unpretentious collection, You Don’t Die of Love, is Hollywood and its people, particularly Harry Dare, an old time actor of Westerns whose private life was more dramatic than his cinematic one.
Review 227: Inklings by Aparna Warrier
Collectively, Inklings (Very short stories and other babies born of ink) by Aparna Warrier, is shorter than a conventional short story. Undoubtedly the shortest book I’ve ever read without pictures.
Review 195: Past; Tense and Other Short Stories by Joe Harding
I can’t say I fully grasp why the title Past; Tense was chosen for the second story, let alone the entire collection. A double-, triple-, or even quadruple-entendre I imagine, involving grammatical tenses, emotional tension, and chronology. Its phonetic awkwardness does foreshadow Joe Harding’s collection as literary fiction; yet these ten well-written, well-edited stories, narrated in ten unique voices, are surprisingly accessible.
Review 151:Death, Dismemberment and a Little Bit of Sass by Jeremy Boland
I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing several short story anthologies published through Lulu, and I have to say that Jeremy Boland’s collection is one of the best. Not only are the stories fresh and original, but the physical book itself is an excellent example of a self-published author getting it right. That’s why I’m going to talk about the book quality first.
Android Romance
Sevron 4000 walked towards the kitchen pod, his face empty but his heart full. Well, it wasn’t exactly his heart, but it was a knot of servos and transistors that fulfilled the same function of keeping him alive. He had been activated 78 terrestrial years prior and came into the world knowing that he was different. The self diagnostic software at MANCO (Marvcorp Android and Nanobot Co) hadn’t detected the positronic pathway anomaly and he wasn’t about to tell them any different.
Super Stuffed
A small arm appeared from under the bed, the first indication of movement during the dark midnight hour. A glassy eye blinked further back. Santa Barbara Mindy and Fluffy Heart Bear cautiously looked at one another. Their careful plan had been hatched over the last several nights.
Review 39: Not All of Them About Zombies by Matthew Rowe
Rather than introduce this book’s author to you, I’ll let him do it himself. Here is the very introduction from the first page of his book:
Matthew Rowe is a recently short-haired, neurotic lay about who is currently unsure of his place in the world. He hopes this book will go some way to asserting himself somewhere. He has written a lot and he wants to share it all, but no one with the money or power has let him as yet. He’s only in his late twenties though so he remains foolishly optimistic. Some people think it is endearing.
Review 10: Footsteps in the Darkness
I can’t resist a good short story anthology. I love being able to sit down with a collection and read two or three stories, and be able to walk away from it for a few days if I choose and not feel like I’m missing out on something. I’ve got closure in a matter of a few pages.