BLOG Short And Sweet: Some Short Story Recommendations

I read the list of contributing authors and a fair few of them were completely unknown to me and I thought, “What the heck? I’ll give it a go.”

I think the book was designed and marketed to paranormal romance fans and reading some reviews I think they were disappointed as there are few of those kind of stories in there. That wasn’t really the tone of the book. However, to be honest I was absolutely surprised by the quality of the collection. It had silly and predictable stories – which is sort what I was expecting – but it also had stories full of depth, melancholy, mystery and humour. If you are a fan of the short story genre don’t be put off by the tone the dust jacket implies; a big proportion of this book is high quality genre fiction. (Not that I am dissing the paranormal romance genre I hasten to add – I’m an unashamed fan myself.)

This tiny and inadequate review of this book is just an excuse to talk to you about my deep love of short stories. The story that worked least well in this anthology was Charlaine Harris’ own; that’s because it isn’t a true short story in the style that makes my geeky heart sing. Short stories set in established universes are difficult to pull off – they work best for people who already love said established world and are often nonsensical or meaningless for those who don’t. The best short stories have – rather obviously – a beginning, middle and an end which happen within the story. They are stand-alone and this makes them work much better. There are authors who can write short stories and those who can’t. It’s a talent in of itself and when I find an author who can do it and do it well they have a loyal and avid reader in me.