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[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
[[Category:Short Stories|*]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca LeeAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Bobcat All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Other StoriesStephen Oram (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=The first story in ''Bobcat'' is the title story, and this alone is worth the price Opening up new ways of admission. Plaster it with prizes, put it in anthologies; it deserves every accolade it can get. However, the last story echoes the first, and the five tales in between are strangely repetitive, most with Midwestern North American narrators and 1980s university settings. Moreover, all seven are in thinking about the first-person; I would have appreciated more variety shape of perspectivethings to come.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182311</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Kelley Armstrong|title=Otherworld Nights|rating=4|genre=Paranormal|summary=Kelley Armstrong revisits her hugely popular I'Otherworldve heard it said that ' series technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in this collection my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of short storiesit is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, featuring many of I could research the possibilities and the prominent characters from probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the serieslatest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356500667</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robin Ince and Johnny Mains (editors)B0CDZRGT1M|title=Dead FunnySuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=Horror
|summary=In a world of nightmares, disasters, death and ignominy there is a book called ''Dead Funny''. Invented purely to satisfy the remit built into its title, it collects some horror stories written by comedians, both household names and those more up-and-coming. Like all horror books it comes out at the time of year best suited for horror – Halloween, when we read with the darkest corners in our rooms, with the longest evenings outside – but is only suited for Halloween because it is a worthless, hellish piece of dross. It never excites, it is the most self-serving vanity project, and the only funny thing about it is that some idiot ever decided it was worth publishing. Now I know you know, courtesy of those bright shiny stars alongside this review, that this volume, Dead Funny, is not ''that'' Dead Funny. But just bear in mind the horror story this could have been, if these pages were not so surprisingly adept at taking those said nightmares, disasters, deaths and ignominy and presenting them to us so competently.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773762</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Konstantina Souzou-Kyrkou
|title=Black Greek Coffee
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=If your experience of Greece is as a tourist then you'll almost certainly think of it in terms of history, mythology and startlingly white buildings against sapphire blue sky and sea. It looks idyllic, but there's Got a darker side minute to Greek lifebe amused, explored by Konstantina Souzou-Kyrkouentertained, in or challenged?''Black Greek Coffee'' - These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a neat metaphor for the lives she looks at: sharp, bitter but ultimately addictiveflash. In twenty three short stories she illuminates the chauvinism and superstition, the concepts of ''honour'' and the status of women, the dominance of religion and the lives led by ''ordinary'' peopleSome are funny. Some are poignant. They sound like grand themes, but the stories All are grounded in domesticity and there will be few people - in any country - who have not been touched by one of the problemsshort.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784620351</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|title=Doctor WhoQuestion: 12 Doctors 12 Stories|author=Malorie Blackman, Holly Black and others|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=how do you review flash fiction? How long do you keep your birthday presents for? A week, give a month, flavour of a year – or life? Is fully rounded little story if that time-scale different, perhaps, when you're nearly a thousand years old? I only ask because Doctor Who story is, of course, both 51 (told in our earthly, televisual representation) and 900 and more fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the flash fictions in human years as a character. In 2013 we were given a great book that gave us a story for every Doctor Who weof them? I don've seen on TV, in honour of the 50th birthday proceedings. But now is a year on, and t know! Perhaps wecould start by explaining that there really isn're t a further Doctor down the line. And so what was '11 Doctors, 11 Stories' is now '12 Doctors, 12 Stories'. So while many fixed definition of us would have cherished and kept said birthday presentflash fiction but that for this collection, the only addition is the last, which like the rest was available as an e-bookauthor Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. So itThat's worth revisiting what I said about the book last time, then chucking a single page in the (what might only be temporarily) concluding story at the endyour average paperback.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141359889</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Problems with PeopleRachel Harrison|authortitle=David GutersonBad Dolls|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=It's been some time since I'Problems ve read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with People'them to the point that I couldn' is a meandering exploration t shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the relationshipsvampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, big and smallI didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and I found most of that we form across a lifetime. Ranging feeling came from the fact that of parent these are stories about women, living normal lives, and child to that between landlord and tenantat least in part, Guterson’s observation of the complexities horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and nuances involved in how we navigate these personal links is extremely sharp and true to lifea coping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408859963</amazonuk>1803363932
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX|title=Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Short Stories2|author=Chuck Palahniuk, Dennis Widmyer and Richard ThomasF Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Saying certain things out loud just don’t sound rightThis is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. Some things There are so disturbing or politically incorrect that you are best off leaving them inside your head, or better yet not thinking thirteen in all and I took something from each of them at all. When these words are spoken they could lead There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the sensation of Burnt Tongue; an aftereffect of knowing what you said was wrongothers or brings down the overall quality. Are you prepared It can be tricky to enter the world of Transgressive Fiction that aims review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to disturb, alienate, disgust talk about and question?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329552X</amazonuk>I think they give a general flavour.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
{{newreview|title=The Best British Short Stories 2014|author=Nicholas Royle (editor)|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=I’m I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen reader on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and I like then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a massive tomevery compelling hook to keep me engaged. But every so Then there's science fiction: far too oftenit's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I drift into think of a mode book of finding it hard to settle to anything and at such times, I like to read twenty-two science fiction short stories. ? Well, I also enjoy them when I’m horribly busy and don’t have the time to read much moreloved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773673</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B09XZMCDVF|title=Any Other MouthStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Anneliese MackintoshRichard F Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=With a title like ''Any Other Mouth'', you know from A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of the night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the outset that this pub football team isvery useful with his feet, shall we say, and awfully familiar…'' This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a rather niche book. It’s not all about orifices, thoughlot to offer the eclectic reader. Partially autobiographical, this Tying them together is the messyidea that remarkable and strange, ludicrouseven miraculous, wildly entertaining story of a girl who’s just a little bit differentthings can happen to ordinary people. Ok, make And that a lot differentordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction is never boring and you're never quite sure what's coming next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754575</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1737030942|title=RevengeBag O'Goodies|author=Yoko Ogawa and Stephen Snyder (translator)Jolly Walker Bittick|rating=54|genre=Short StoriesAnthologies|summary=A woman waits for Sometimes, you deserve a long time at a village bakery, her mind only on the strawberry shortcakes she wants to buy, treat and the strange reasons that make the purchase so important to hermine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''. A boy is invited I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], a girl at school to rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a posh French restaurant – with strawberry shortcakes on the menu – in order for him to provide moral support as she meets her estranged father base for the first timetheir partying. NearbyRight now, I didn't want a woman enjoys an unusual relationship with her elderly landladyfull-length novel, who keeps finding unusually-shaped carrots in her vegetable gardenso I turned to this anthology of verse and short stories. A man reflects on an unusual relationship with a writer who for a couple of years at least was a stepBittick's writing has matured -mum to him, even as she went dotty in talking to herselfand so have his characters. Unusual relationships, vegetables, motives – and strawberry shortcakes – are prevalent in this fascinating look at a sunlit yet dark world, which makes for a superlatively clever readWell...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553937</amazonuk>most of them!
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529418100|title=Dead ManBruno's HandChallenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=John Joseph Adams (editor)Martin Walker|rating=54
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=I''Dead Man's Hand'' features m not usually a fan of short stories with themes ranging from time travel and vampires to theology; at first glance - I find it definitely appears all too easy to be an eclectic mix. These put the book down between stories are linked by the genre of the weird west, which is defined by its elasticity. John Joseph Adams' helpful introduction outlines the main features of the weird west and provides a clear, insightful guide forget to this littlepick it up again -known genre. Far from being mismatched, the eclectic nature but I am a fan of this collection is Martin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in fact Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the greatest strength of the weird west genretemptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and I'm rather glad that I didn't even try. Unconstrained by narrow generic conventions, For those new to the authors in this collection have plundered the deepest depths of their imaginations. The result? A colourfulseries, memorable and, above there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all, you need to know about who''imaginative'' collection of fictions who and the background to why Bruno is in St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783295465</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B08NF79QXT|title=The ListenerCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Tove JanssonBrooke Adams|rating=53|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=Until very recently Jansson was probably only known in Thirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the EnglishCherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's nominated for -speaking world for and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award. She's delighted and the two people she's brought with her Moomin storiesto the event couldn't be more pleased. Then along came Sonja, her mother, is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from. Jessica's thirty-four and Liberty'Sort ofs best friend: they've known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica' books s husband, Charles and their wonderful translatorsfour-year-old daughter, foremost among them: Thomas TealAva. And we started to understand what Life would be perfect for Liberty if it was about the woman…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745363</amazonuk>wasn't for one thing: she misses having a man in her life.
}}
 {{newreview <!-- 19/5 -->Frontpage|authorisbn=Lightfall Literary Agency (Editor)B08KKQ85FN|title=The Obsidian Poplar and Other StoriesBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=I'll confess that I was 'If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a little nervous pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.'' You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Obsidian Poplar Wife of Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and Other Storiessettled in Rome. Well 'settled'rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf. There}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08CHJLNBS|title=Capturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a common misconception that short stories are easy - something run off quickly before partner at Wickham Jones, the author gets on with doing the proper job of a fullMayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twenty-length worknine, but librarian and archivist in the truth is rather differentheritage library next door. A short story Emilia has none of the luxuries of a longer work: plot development has to be done quicklyread [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, characters have to come off the pagesomething a little deeper. Every word must earn its keep. A book can be written - Charles is more of a short story must be [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''craftedThe Guardian''. But what made me particularly nervous here was that They're obviously not at all the authors are students - and the editor was convinced that there are ten compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of them who are good enough his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to be included in the bookhis friends.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00JH1B94E</amazonuk> And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously a non-starter, isn't it?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli Marie O'Regan and Giancarlo De CataldoPaul Kane (editors)|title=JudgesCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesFantasy|summary=ICurses. They'll confess that it was the name re there throughout tales of [[:Category:Andrea Camilleri|Andrea Camilleri]] which brought me faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this book, or not to be able to do that. I'm a long-time fan Children can be cursed, as can princesses on the verge of his Inspector Montalbano series marrying, and older people too. It seems in a recent reading of a spin-off [[Montalbanoway there's First Case by Andrea Camilleri|novella]] had proved to me that the concise nature of his full-length novels was no flukeescaping it. In ''Judges'' we had another novella - worth buying for its own sake - and Which is why the bonus theme of this book of two more short stories from better-than-decent Italian authors. All is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, that was needed was a glass of wine demonised place, and a comfortable chairthat other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong. Did the book live up to expectation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857052977</amazonuk>1789091500
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas|title=Lying Under the Apple TreeAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Alice MunroNina Stibbe
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesHumour|summary=Munro packs an extraordinary amount into a short storyChristmas – the time of traditional trauma. Some of them are quite long You only have to think about the turkey for short storiesthat – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and they are not if that failed the sorts of stories that might suit reading on hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your daily commute; they demand more attention than next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic thatyou can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Her observations of human behaviour are acuteChristmas, though, and the most innocuous is of them will set you thinking course also a time of great dealboons. Most It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the stories warrant thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a pause decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and as for thought the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and need a little sell them any other time for absorption of detail.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593777</amazonuk>the year?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0954899520|title=Stories of World War OneA Winter Book|author=Tony BradmanTove Jansson
|rating=5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=World War OneTove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, or written in the Great War as it was known at 1940s and later becoming television characters of the timesimplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a cataclysmic war. Millions died and life was changed forever serious writer…that she wrote for the survivors - adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the women of Britain, natural world and for the working classes and ruling classes alike. 2014 is the centenary simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of its outbreak and how the redoubtable Tony Bradman has gathered together a dozen of our best writers for young people to create an anthology of short stories to commemorate the anniversaryworld might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408330350</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1911115847|title=Something Like HappyNights of the Creaking Bed|author=John BurnsideToni Kan|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=How do you pick a name for a short story collection? It seems to me the ''...and other storiesNights of the Creaking Bed'' add-on is like picking a favourite child, a promotion collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of one portion stories tell of the content above the restlives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. [[:Category:John Burnside|John Burnside]] has got a title story hereNigeria, in this collection, but such is the mood imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the book shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that he seems allows these cynical stories to have nailed the matter, and picked the most apposite name. ''Something Like Happy'' could in achieve a way be the title for practically every piece hereglimmer of hope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575590</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529014484|title=Brief Loves That Live ForeverExhalation |author=Andrei MakineTed Chiang|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=Our unnamed narrator is inspired to think back through his life on Over the girls and women he past twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has been in love withpublished fifteen science fiction short stories, partly because these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of a time spent with an associate – a time marked the work by a seemingly most unremarkable encounter with a further woman – whom he deemed had never been lovedTed Chiang. The associate, If you see, had spent half his adult life in Soviet camps for political instruction – our narrator himself was an orphan in the 1960shaven' Soviet Uniont then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful. This snappy volume takes us through episodes in several lives at different points during and since the second half of communist rule – and finally explains the import of that unremarkable encounter…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780870493</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Haynes1794467440|title=Promises to Keep: A Short StoryWatchwords |author=Philip Neal
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Jo is haunted by This satisfying collection of short stories has a provenance at least as beguiling as the death provenance of the antique watches that inspired it. Philip Neal lost a teenage asylum seeker whilst in police custody watch. It was a watch he was fond of and she only hangs on had been told was like a 1930s Cartier. Instead of mourning its loss, he began to her fragile sanity by runningcollect vintage watches that resembled it. Whilst sheAnd that's out in the woods (where she'd been warned that she ''really'' shouldn't go) she discovered how he became a young boy living rough and she knew that she had watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to do everything the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in her power to keep him safe. There were complicationsClerkenwell. Her partner The eBay purchase was DS Sam Hollands who had a direct involvement with asylum seekers - fake, but the friendship that grew between the buyer and the boy living rough in the woods repairer of watches was not and the younger brother seed of the dead teenager. Sam wanted to get her relationship with Jo back onto an even keel, but one night she returned from work to find idea for a stranger in her housebook was born.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00I9GXP2M</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529006031|title=The Rental Heart and other FairytalesReturn to Wonderland|author=Kirsty LoganVarious Authors|rating=34.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=To start In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of age]], I found that I didn't really find too much favour with, are these stories strictly fairytales? it. On The wacky-for-the evidence -sake-of this collection-it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it is at times more as a distinction that seems open to debate, a category that lies waiting child. But I would suggest I am the perfect audience for definitionthis book. But I had every chance to enjoy these short stories that come at the same timecore from a tangent, such is that show the genre-switching (and at times gender-switching), that it is a subtitle that serves better than mostbenefits of the oblique glance. The title story examines a lifeI've always preferred coming to an author's romantic history via a twist on the idea that we give our heart away to every lover – what do we have when they are gone and a new one takes output through their place? Elsewhereleast obvious, a landed lady takes advantage of her servantallegedly throw-away pieces, and another cultured madam hires a clockwork companion to shrug off it's the suitors, same with obvious, narratively logical results. A medical worker and her pregnant partner share franchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a caravan togetherhunch, all the while knowing a different circumstance might be closer than first thoughtfor obvious reasons). We have the beginnings of love livesFor another thing, the end there was every reason to expect some kind of hatredgreatness here – with Carroll much loved by millions, and the end of the world surely pieces written with that love in these pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773754</amazonuk>mind could only provide for success after success?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1846974658|title=Further Encounters of Sherlock HolmesThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=George Mann (Editor)Jan-Philipp Sendker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Hot on On my travels around the heels of [[Encounters of Sherlock Holmes by George Mann (Editor)|Encounters of Sherlock Holmes]] comes another collection of brandworld, I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-new hand escapist tales written by some of as the next person, what I'm really looking for is the 'local' – the brightest creative minds from cookbook maybe, the genres of science fiction and crime. In this anthologymaps definitely, Holmes and Watson are pitched headlong into twelve different mysterious scenarios and invited to unravel secrets and unmask villains as only they know howbut above all: the folk tales. During their adventures they come face If I ever get to face with a mountain monsterBurma, take a murderous boat tripI won't need to hunt, meet Moriarty’s siblings and even indulge in a little space travelI can read before I go. The game is afoot!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178116004X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Rose (writer of short stories)B077969HN8|title=Posthumous StoriesAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=These sixteen Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories have one thing in common: lives, and plenty ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of themsurrealism''. We jump from the earthy banter of I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a road crew building speed humps to an interview pre-broadcast fan of a classical piece where the interviewer isneither, but I't getting ve come to two conclusions about the kind of answers for which he hopes. On book: what the way we meet the leastpublisher says is correct -mentioned Beatle, visit a world where people are paid to read for the many that donand I really enjoyed it. The comedy is not ''too''t black and the man trying to remember his father through art to name but surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a fewtwist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. For good measure there Your comfort zones are a couple of Kafka-esque experiments that also work as ripping good yarnsgoing to be invaded in the nicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773576</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Doctor Who: 11 Doctors, 11 Stories9386897504|authortitle=Eoin Colfer, Michael Scott and others|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=It's basic knowledge that Doctor Who has changed a lot since first being seen fifty years ago – and I don't mean the title character, but the nature Tales of the programme. It has gone from black Love and white, and cheaply produced, and declared disposable, to being an essential part of the BBC, full-gloss digital, and accessed in all manner of ways. So with the celebratory programme still ringing in our ears, and leaving people pressing a red button to see a programme about three Doctors, er, pressing a red button, we turn to other aspects of the birthday bonanza. Such as this book, which has also mutated in its much shorter lifespan, from being a loose collection of eleven short e-book novellas written by the blazing lights of YA writing, to a huge and brilliant paperback collecting everything within one set of covers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141348941</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Of Lions and Unicorns: A Lifetime of Tales from the Master StorytellerDisability|author=Michael MorpurgoLaura Solomon
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=I''Of Lions ve always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and Unicorns'' is talent to write a collection short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for more. There are far too many collections of short stories which are all too easy to put down and extracts from Morpurgo’s most popular booksforget after you've read a couple of pieces. The book is split into five sections I've recently read a couple of novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, which focus on recurring themes in his writingso I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007395353</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1986586898|title=Rags and BonesGoing To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt (Editors)K D Knight
|rating=4.5
|genre=Anthologies
|summary=Some of today's top authors have come together to retell classic tales - from fairy stories to Victorian-era fiction. As usual with this kind of anthology, it's a fairly hit-or-miss affair, but the hits here are so strong that they're well worth picking up the book for.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472210522</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|title=The Science of Herself
|author=Karen Joy Fowler
|rating=3
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=I've said it beforeIn the opening story, a man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and I'll say it againhis wife. The most fun when facing a new author, especially a big name one, is to come through the underground, tackling In ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the smaller works, the quirkier output, the less representative sections problem of her whether or not to run his oeuvrehorse in the Gold Cup when the ground is against him. And for those who have or haven't read My favourite was ''The Jane Austen Book ClubStory of H'', there is plenty of potential for that with the rest of [[The Case story of Foinavon. H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the Imaginary Detective by Karen Joy Fowler|Karen Joy Fowler]], for her output includes almost as many selections yard of short stories as it does very successful novels, and what's more they carry the science fictional bannerJohn Kempton. A long time ago there H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and considered a teenage me very happy to be reading ''Lord no-hoper. In one of the most dramatic runnings of the Flies'' and writing an essay about how scirace, a pile-fi it wasup occurred at the 23rd fence. Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and I do relish galloped to the mainstream author entering a genreline, or winning the inverse race at odds of that100/1. But boy, I normally come away a lot happier than I did here.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1604868252</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Mosse9386897296|title=The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting TalesHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon|rating=43.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This book of 14 short stories A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and a short play is based on I was delighted by the opportunity to read the ideaof hauntingsequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''. Sometimes It's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the haunting devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but the devil is the ghostly kind and sometimessomething psychologically deeper and more primalnot one to take defeat lying down. All the stories drift He's out tous from different eras, both past wage war on Planet Earth and recent, but all have one thing incommon: they centre particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a troubled person'goody two shoes' in Hell). For instance we meet GastonAlthough a strong person, aFrench child who witnesses an odd event on the beach just after losing hisparentsshe's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. In the inevitably touching but beautiful Daniel is framed for a crime he didn''Red Letter Day'' wetravel t commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to a French castle with a woman who has an appointment live with the pastMarsha.If you want something completely different Then, of course, thereare all the other children who are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to the devil's evil ends. He''The Duet'' which drawsus into a fascinating dialogue s out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and then hits us as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a stingtraining complex on earth, complete with an elevator to Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409148041</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|title=The Time Traveller's Almanac|author=Anne VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer|rating=4|genre=Anthologies|summary=From H.G Wells to ''Doctor Who'', there is something about a good time-travel story that has the power to ignite the imagination in a way unique to the genre. Perhaps it is due Move to the fact that when dealing with the subject of time travel, literally ''anything is possible''. Well, almost anything...apart from going back in time and killing your Grandfather, which we know would cause an almighty paradox and probably destroy the universe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781853908</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diana Wells|title=Odes and Prose for Older Women|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=I am, of course, not an older woman and nether is Diana Wells. We were born in the same year and we are what is best described as 'upper middle aged', but - perhaps in anticipation of what is to come - Diana has collected together her writings on the subject and I read through them in two sittings (the break was enforced) and I laughed and cried, but the wry smile of recognition never left my face from beginning to end. There are about eighty five short stories and odes - with none more than a few pages long - written, we are told, from observation, experience or imagination [[Newest Spirituality and I can only conclude that Wells has led a very rich life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780356838</amazonuk>}}Religion Reviews]]

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