Showing Tag: ""short stories"" (Show all posts)

Yard Sale by Charles Hibbard

Posted by Paul Samael on Monday, December 27, 2021, In : Book reviews 




This beautifully written book - available for free on Smashwords - occupies a not particularly well-colonised fictional space somewhere between a novel and a collection of short stories.  

It’s like a novel in the sense that it depicts various episodes in the life of one character, Ruth, who was born - I am guessing - at some point in the first two decades of the twentieth century.  We first meet Ruth in (late) middle age, having gone on a solo road trip to escape marital difficulties - but ...

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Day Gazing by Carla Herrera

Posted by Paul Samael on Wednesday, May 27, 2015, In : Book reviews 



I first read this collection of short stories a while ago and had been meaning to do a review of it for some time.  But in a way, I’m glad I waited because it’s meant that I ended up re-reading the collection in full – and there were a number of stories that I got more out of on the second (or even third) reading.

Anyway, the first thing to say about this collection is that, although it’s subtitled “Weird Shorts”, all the stories are written in a very accessible way – so don’t ...

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The Future Manifestations of Saint Christina the Astonishing

Posted by Paul Samael on Wednesday, November 13, 2013, In : Book reviews 





UPDATE 3.2022 - although this book no longer seems to be available for free and seemed to have disappeared from view for a while, I was pleased to see that it has now popped up on Amazon at £0.99.

This short book describes eight appearances of the medieval “Saint” Christina the Astonishing (the unofficial patron saint of people affected by mental illness) in the near and distant future.  The “real” Saint Christina is said to have risen from the dead during the course ...


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3 by Moxie Mezcal

Posted by Paul Samael on Sunday, November 3, 2013, In : Book reviews 



3 is a collection of three long-ish, meaty short stories by Moxie Mezcal.  By “meaty” I mean that they could almost qualify for the novella tag – because there is so much going on in terms of plot and interesting ideas that by the time you’ve finished, you are left with the kind of feeling more commonly associated with longer fiction. 

The first story, “Home Movie,” is about a porn store DVD which has been replaced with what appears to be a snuff movie – is it ...


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The King of Infinite Space

Posted by Paul Samael on Friday, October 18, 2013, In : Writing fiction 




Just published a new short story on Feedbooks.  Stylistically, it's more in the same vein as "Agricultural Production in the Sudan" i.e. quite short, verging on flash fiction - but rather different subject matter.

It was partly prompted by Jonathan Franzen's much ridiculed article in the Guardian last month, where he rails against self-publishers as worthless "yakkers and bloggers", who are wantonly destroying the delicate publishing eco-system (in contrast to highly paid professionals like hi...
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Unpredictable

Posted by Paul Samael on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, In : Book reviews 



“Unpredictable” is a collection of 3 short stories by Bryan R Dennis available as an ebook free of charge on feedbooks.com. UPDATE 5.2019 - well, not any more, as Feedbooks has closed down its self-publishing platform - but happily, as at the time of updating, you could still get your hands on a copy from the good folks at getfreeebooks.

Oh no, I hear you sigh, not another collection of short stories (e.g. see here and here for previous reviews of short story collections).  But let me ...


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Pigs and Other Living Things

Posted by Paul Samael on Wednesday, December 12, 2012, In : Book reviews 


 
Rather like Stories for Airports, "Pigs and Other Living Things" by Sean Boling appears to be another collection of well-written short stories that’s in danger of getting buried under the ever-expanding mass of self-published books on Smashwords.  I wish I could say that the many thousands of loyal readers of this blog (ah, if only...) can be relied upon to rescue it from that fate.  But since my daily total of “eyeballs” rarely climbs above the low single figures (even allowing for th...

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Falling and The End of the Circus

Posted by Paul Samael on Saturday, August 25, 2012, In : Book reviews 

 
 
Two thoughtful short stories from Bernard Fancher available on Smashwords: 

"Falling" is about the murder of a child, but with a rather different slant from most mystery/crime fiction and a more thoughtful, literary approach.  Instead of the conventional “who dunnit”, the focus is on the emotions of the detective who dealt with the case as she goes to return some of the child’s belongings, once the murderer has been convicted.  The facts of the case are conveyed briefly and fairly disp...

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Stories for Airports

Posted by Paul Samael on Sunday, July 15, 2012, In : Book reviews 


 
I’m puzzled as to why this excellent short story collection on Smashwords hasn’t been reviewed before, because it appears to have been on the site for some time (since 2009?).  But maybe that’s the problem – unless you’re fortunate enough to get a review at a reasonably early stage, your stuff tends to get buried under increasing amounts of everyone else’s stuff.  Anyway, I hope that what follows will encourage more people to give it a try.

As the blurb says, these stories are not...

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About Me


Paul Samael Welcome to my blog, "Publishing Waste" which will either (a) chronicle my heroic efforts to self-publish my own fiction; or (b) demonstrate beyond a scintilla of doubt the utter futility of (a). And along the way, I will also be doing some reviews of other people's books and occasionally blogging about other stuff.
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