(Drivebycuriosity) - I like science fiction short stories. Often a writer has an interesting idea which might carry a story over maybe 100 pages or less, but when she stretches the plot the story gets thinner and thinner and the text has too many fillers. Short stories come usually fast to the point and they are crisp.
The anthology "Sci-Fi Shorts Vol. 1" collects around sixty very short stories (500 words limit), called sci-fi flashes ( amazon). Apparently the book is the result of a writing program. The anthology shows the problems with contract works. The writers need to squeeze out a product to meet the deadline which is rarely a guaranty for quality. Ideas come spontaneous, not on demand.
I have read very short scifi stories before. Some of them were quite impressive. In one story (I don´t recall author, title & publication) someone sits in his garden, when suddenly a man appears. The arrival declares that he comes from the future - using a time machine. Unfortunately his time machine exploded at departure and blew the whole world apart. "Oh, from when in the future do you come?" The answer: "One hour from now!"
The story "Bordeaux Mixture" by Charles Dexter Ward is a funny take on tomatoes, genetic engineering & human pheromones (3 pages in Year´s Best SF 6 by David G. Harwell amazon ). "The New Year Train” by Hao Jingfang (collected in the anthology "Broken Stars" amazon ) is another stunning flash story. People have disappeared. They were traveling with a high-tech vehicle which run on advanced technologies &
phenomena like quantum mechanics and black holes. Apparently something went wrong. Spooky and thought provoking.
None of the stories in this collection interested me. Science fiction can much do better. I will skip Volume 2 of this anthology.
No comments:
Post a Comment