Tag Archives: short stories

Book Review: The Very Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction Volume Two – Edited by Gordon Van Gelder

Posted on June 25, 2017 by

I have been reading a lot of short stories lately. The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century was about eight hundred pages of short stories, and The Best American Noir of the Century was about seven hundred fifty pages … Continue reading →

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Book Review: The Best American Noir of the Century – Edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler

Posted on June 4, 2017 by

I checked this hefty volume of short stories out of the library because I had been so impressed by the collection The Best Mystery Stories of the Century.  What is noir and what makes it different from mystery?  Well, it’s … Continue reading →

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Book Review: The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century – Edited by Tony Hillerman and Otto Penzler

Posted on May 6, 2017 by

This is a monster of a book: eight hundred pages of stories.  It’s also an excellent book, and probably the best value for the money of any book I’ve ever bought.  I came across it at the annual Seattle Friends … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Best of Times, Worst of Times: Contemporary American Short Stories From the New Gilded Age Edited by Wendy Martin and Cecelia Tichi

Posted on February 25, 2017 by

I was in the mood to read short stories, and I found this collection during a random search through the Seattle Public Library database.  It had a lot of well-regarded authors in it, so why not give it a try?  … Continue reading →

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Book Review: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 Edited by Karen Joy Fowler and John Joseph Adams

Posted on January 29, 2017 by

In contemplating the merits of this new volume of the best speculative fiction of the year 2016, I am inevitably drawn to a comparison to Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection, which I read a few … Continue reading →

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Book Review: The Best American Short Stories 2016 Edited by Junot Diaz

Posted on November 12, 2016 by

In these days of economic austerity I often peruse the new book shelves of the local library rather than book stores for reading material.  On one of those forays I came across this volume.  It’s a hardcover; I didn’t know … Continue reading →

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Book Review: “Not So Much” Said the Cat by Michael Swanwick

Posted on July 24, 2016 by

Multiple Hugo and Nebula winner Michael Swanwick writes both novels and shorter works, but it is in short stories that he truly shines.  He’s one of those writers that is at home in the shorter length; others that I can … Continue reading →

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Book Review: 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Edited by Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor; Part Two

Posted on March 13, 2016 by

As I wrote in the first essay about this book, the early entries disappointed me.  There are some great writers, but the selected stories are not among their best.  They read like the stories that you have to read in … Continue reading →

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Book Review: 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Edited by Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor; Part One

Posted on March 6, 2016 by

I feel disappointed, and the feeling is tenacious; it won’t go away; so rather than stew in my own juices and wait for it to pass, I have to write about it.  Just to clarify, there are other disappointments and … Continue reading →

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Book Review: The Best American Short Stories 2015 Edited by T.C. Boyle and Heidi Pitlor; Part Two: Imbalance in Story Anthologies

Posted on February 20, 2016 by

Today is Sunday, and I do laundry for my son and myself on Sundays.  I make sure that I am in the laundry room with our two loads at eight o’clock in the morning, which is the earliest permissible time … Continue reading →

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