Tag: Short stories

Categories
General Posts, Non Reviews

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Short Fiction Pieces on Rain

Hi all! This week’s topic is having to do with rain in the title or within the book, and my mind went immediately to a deluge of Ray Bradbury stories. Does anyone else write about rain so poignantly? Let’s see. I’m going to rack my brain to remember ten short fiction stories about rain from various authors!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

https://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/
  1. The Long Rain by Ray Bradbury. This is the one every sci-fi reader will think of first, so let’s get it out of the way. A beautiful story for sure and one of the ones that sparked my love for short fiction

The rain continued. It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains.

The Long Rain/Death by Rain

2. The Rain Dancers by Greg F. Gifune. About 70 pages, a dark story about a deceased father’s household affairs when a stranger comes to call during a rain storm. What truths will be revealed by this old family friend who no one remembers?

3. Not a short story but a book that I loved, The Rain Watcher by Tatiana de Rosnay is about a family gathering in Paris to celebrate the grandfather’s life and one of the worst floods in the city’s history. The hospital evacuation scenes are incredible

OK, more short stories

4. The Day it Rained Forever by Ray Bradbury. The master gets two. Most commonly found within the collection of the same title, another great story

5. Symbols and Signs by Vladimir Nabokov is about, to me, the beauty of small things. It begins on a rainy day and is a very short and accessible story

6. Cat in the Rain by Ernest Hemmingway is a very short story about a couple stuck in their hotel room because it’s raining. Y’all can chat about what the cat symbolizes but it’s right in line with the rest of the stories in Our Time

7. Rain, Rain, Go Away by Isaac Asimov… What to say about this story. The less you know the better, but basically some curious neighbors want to find out why this other family avoids water at all costs. I thought it was quirky and funny

8. Nothing but the Rain by Naomi Salman is actually one I read after one of the other SPSFC team leads read and reviewed it. I like epistolary stories and the question of why rain strips memories seemed like something I’d enjoy, and I did.

9. There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale, screenshot from Wikipedia. A classic short poem about the passivity of nature towards the aftermath of human casualty

10. The Museum of Rain by Dave Eggers. An old man leads his grandchildren to a place that may or may not exist, called The Museum of Rain

I had to work hard for that one 😅 What books did you include about rain this week!? Link me your post and I’ll go check it out!

Categories
Fantasy Fiction Paranormal

Book Thoughts: From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury

The original Charles Addams cover with a haunted looking mansion on a hill

While I normally pick up these story collections in October, I needed something short and sweet to close out December’s reading this past year. Akin to The October Country which features the short stories Homecoming and Uncle Einar, From the Dust Returned builds on Homecoming and other short stories featuring the Elliott family to create a volume of their own tales.

If you want a fun story, go and Google how Bradbury and Charles Addams were friends and how he illustrated the book cover. Did you know there’s more than one eccentric paranormal family out there? Bradbury collected the existing stories around his own Eternal Family, added some connective tissue, and as a result we got From the Dust Returned.

From A Thousand Times Great Grandmère to her papyrus headed husband, the cat, the summer witch who lives through possession, a woman who is born from the grave and ages backwards into another’s womb, to Uncle Einar himself, we get to see many of their stories as they gather at the Illinois homestead. Only Bradbury can make a compelling character of the creaking of the Roman gates.

Thread through is the story of Tommy, the only human among them, as he meets these strange folks and tries to discern his place in the family.

With all the typical layers of Bradbury prose and atmosphere that I love and could read all day, I would totally recommend this collection for anyone interested. A great book to add to your October Reading or Halloween TBR lists.

Are we kin to autumn rains? Do we rise in mists from wetland moors? Do twilight fogs seem similar? Do we prowl or run or lope? Are we shadows on a ruined wall? Are we dusts shaken in sneezes from angel tombstones with broken wings? Do we hover or fly or writhe in October ectoplasms? Are we footsteps heard to waken us and bump our skulls on nailed-shut lids? Are we batwing heartbeats held in claw or hand or teeth?

From the Dust Returned

Book Info

  • Originally from William Morrow, 2001, 204 pages. The Kindle edition released in 2013 thru William Morrow paperbacks and there is also an audio, released in 2022, narrated by Keith Szarabajka through Blackstone Publishing. I did sample the audio but ended up sticking to the paperback 📚

Thanks for checking out my book thoughts on, or book review of From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury. I bought and own this one, although not the hardcover pictured, and as always all opinions are my own 🖤

Categories
General Posts, Non Reviews

Top Ten Tuesday: A Few Things You Can Read Fairly Quickly

I think today’s prompt is novellas under 150 pages or something you can read in one day, but there are plenty of things that you could read quickly. What about a short story here and there? Or a novella collection? Or an episode of Grimdark Magazine? Let’s look at ten things I’ve read recently that can be broken up into a daily chunk 😅

P.S. As always I will always comment back on anything that’s an actual list and I love to follow back other bloggers!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together

https://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/
  1. The Boddicker Letters by A.C. Cross. This is a quick spiral into madness in the form of letters. The chapters are short and I could have easily read this in one evening
The Boddicker Letters by A.C. Cross, white cursive lettering is floating towards the reader from a green aurora type background
Two vague and hazy brown faces, facing each other in a circle in side profile with Uneasy Beginnings in the same color brown underneath, black background

2. Anything from the Black Shuck Shadows collection is extremely short and fun to flip through. Featuring indie authors of horror and suspense, you can sample someone you haven’t read before

3. The Cosmic Comedy Collection is full of laughs. It’s fairly short and you could read it in one day, or read 1-2 short stories at a time

4. A short story or novella collection by Stephen King such as The Bazaar of Bad Dreams or If it Bleeds. King is known for his longer books obviously but he is a tremendously talented short story and novella writer as well and there’s a lot to choose from.

5. Ray Bradbury is another author with a huge short story and novella repertoire to choose from. You could read a few stories at a time or binge something like From the Dust Returned, although I like to take my time with it

6. I don’t remember exactly how long The Massive Planet is but I binged the audiobook during one drive and I think the average reader could experience the novella in one day too. Jeff Walker has a few shorter sci-fi adventures

7. May Sarton has a ton of short and sweet novellas from back before Cozy was it’s own genre. I loved The Poet and the Donkey, or for something heavier, As We Are Now is a great read

8. One of my favorite short reads from last year, it packs no surprises but I couldn’t rip my eyes off I’m Sorry About Tommy by Andre Pretty. It’s a 2-3 hour to read horror novella

9. Any of Lisa Schneidau’s books of folk tales are very short and easy to get through in one day, or take the short tales 1-2 at a time when you have a break

10. Shoot me for this one but as stuuuupid as Kiera Cass and The Selection books are – it’s kind of stupidly addicting like The Bachelor and I definitely can read one these books in one afternoon 😅

Ok Go, tell me what short reads you like!

Categories
Fiction Horror Paranormal

Uneasy Beginnings by Simon Kurt & Benjamin Kurt Unsworth

Two vague and hazy brown faces, facing each other in a circle in side profile with Uneasy Beginnings in the same color brown underneath, black background

I met these two authors while at a convention in the UK, and if anyone knows me y’all know that I’ll buy just about anything to support young authors. They were nice enough to sign the book for me too and here I am finally getting around to reading it.

Black Shuck Shadows is a UK publication of collected horror shorts featuring various authors. I’ve seen a few copies in the USA so I do believe it’s relevant, if not just a good way to feature different authors without a huge monetary or time commitment.

Anyway, seven stories are featured here. Dad, Simon, “edited” the collection and chose four of his old stories and three of his son, Ben’s. The thing is – he doesn’t tell us who wrote what. Three of the stories focus on kidnap and torture, and two don’t really have a beginning or ending, and I am going to assume those are Ben’s since they are less polished and more weird. The ones with clearer beginnings and endings I think are Simon’s.

He did a pretty decent job proofreading and editing but if it were me, even if it was terrible, I’d be holding the kid out by the scruff of his shirt collar like “HEY I MADE THIS AND HE WROTE THIS”. I don’t know if I’d make readers guess who did what, but it was fun food for thought.

I will, like I said, assume though that the stories with beginnings and endings belong to the adult. Some of the stories are pretty good, while some are just weird. I think the first is the best, titled “Button”, and it kind of goes up and down from there. There is other kind of horror than torture and I think Simon is the one writing about skin suits and ghastly medical suites, where Ben is doing the random unexplained torture chambers.

That said – Keep writing kid, everyone starts somewhere and I think that each story had high points for sure. I’d read more from them as their craft develops for sure, and they both seemed nice enough.

Bookish Quick Facts:

  • Title: Uneasy Beginnings
  • Authors: Simon Kurt & Benjamin Kurt Unsworth
  • Published: Black Shuck Books, 2020
  • Length: 114 pages
  • Recommend: for short fiction, horror fans & those supporting young writers!
Categories
Fiction Science Fiction

The Cosmic Comedy Collection by Phillip Carter & Others (ARC Review)

Thanks so much to SPSFC author AJ Pagan for the early PDF copy of The Cosmic Comedy collection! Published by another SPSFC author, Phillip Carter, this is a whole bag of laughs from the copyright section to the author bios.

Let’s take a quick look at the collection and I’ll share my thoughts

Bookish Quick Facts
  • Title: The Cosmic Comedy Collection
  • Author: Various
  • Published: Self, November 2023
  • Length: 119 pages
  • Recommended: for fans of offbeat humor

Here’s the Synopsis:

This book contains talented, hilarious writing from: A.J. Pagan,nAaron Frale, John Coon, Phillip Carter, Robin Drown.

Arranged by Author-Comedian hybrid and bigfoot lookalike Phillip Carter, this book is a wild adventure into comedy that proves that Science Fiction can be a lot more than sulky protagonists and miserable weather. It can be silly, twisted, and downright ridiculous too. If you like your Sci-Fi with a comedic edge, you’re in the right place.

From Am*zon
My Thoughts

I held off on a rating for this one because it’s impossible for any of my devices to read PDF format properly, so I can’t speak for how the book looks overall. I do love the cover though.

As far as the content, the stories range from offbeat to completely hilarious. Even the copyright section is full of laughs, as well as the author bios, and everything in between.

Can bad poetry save the day for a crew of smugglers? Will a lonely alien find an iteration of Earth he can tolerate? Can a cat possibly survive the most bizarre fall out of the sky ever? What else has cat-burrito-in-space side written? Well…. You’ll have to check it out to find out!

I read one story a day to spread it out a bit and fully enjoyed the wild ideas these authors came up with. Totally recommend for anyone looking for scifi that doesn’t take itself seriously… At all 🤣

Thank you so much to the author for my free digital review copy of the story collection. As always, this is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own🚀

Categories
audiobooks Fiction Horror Mysteries

Audiobook Review: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King (Short Stories)

I’ve recently developed an interest in short stories. They serve as both as a great way to sample new authors and as a nice break from longer books. Even better is when you have someone to discuss the stories with and bounce reactions off of.

Often times these collections work well in audiobook form. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is an APA Lifetime Achievement award winning collection where Stephen King himself narrates his introduction to each story. I love the little bits of autobiography and finding out what King was thinking when he wrote each one. I’ve read some of his novellas but this is my first experience with King’s short fiction. Overall I definitely like it and would read more by him.

While the synopsis (at the end here) says everything I could ever want to about the collection itself, let me start here with the narrators and overall production. I liked all of the narrators and assume that Will Patton got to read two stories because he is the master of everything. Really the man can do no wrong. The only bad thing I found was the music that played in between King’s introduction and the narrator speaking; it totally drowned out the female speaker who stated the name of the upcoming story and who the narrator is.

I think out of the lot, “Ur” was my favorite. What would you even do with a magic Kindle that had stories from thousands of alternate universes by all the famous authors? It got creepy and dangerous real quick. I also liked how King mused on bookish scholars in this one.

“Summer Thunder” was my other favorite, where a nuclear war destroyed most of the Earth’s population and a rural Vermont area was left with two men and one very sick dog. Radiation poisoning is everywhere and it’s a sad story about going out on your own terms…that could be very real someday.

There are 19 other stories that range from baseball with a murdery twist to evil hungry cars, morality, old friends, dementia, and everything inbetween. This is a wonderful collection of light horror, mystery, and general fiction that’s great for spooky season or any other time of year. I’d definitely recommend the audiobook too.

Bookish Quick Facts

  • Title: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories
  • Author: Stephen King
  • Narrator: Various
  • Length: 20h 11m, 511 pages
  • Release: Simon & Shuster Audio 2015 (Scribner)
  • Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Here’s the Synopsis

A master storyteller at his best – the O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story.

Since his first collection, Nightshift, published 35 years ago, Stephen King has dazzled listeners with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection he assembles, for the first time, recent stories that have never been published in a book. He introduces each with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it.

There are thrilling connections between stories, including themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, and what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. “Afterlife” is about a man who died of colon cancer and keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Other stories address what happens when someone discovers he has supernatural powers: the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits”; the old judge in “The Dune”, who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw written in the sand the names of people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality”, King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win.

Magnificent, eerie, utterly compelling, these stories comprise one of King’s finest gifts to his constant fan. “I made them especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.”

From Am*zon
Categories
Fantasy Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction

The Avram Davidson Treasury: Final Stories & Final Thoughts

*Breathes* is it over? Did I finish? Yes I did!

I’ve written on the prior sections of the Treasury in earlier posts, and now will sum up my thoughts on the final two sections and the collection in general.  Before starting, I noted that for an author that is rarely if ever circulated now despite his massive early  influence, it’s interesting to look at all the awards that he won or was nominated for.

http://www.sfadb.com/Avram_Davidson

How many authors win awards all across the mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy genres?  The entire Treasury itself also won and was nominated multiple times. Naples won a world fantasy award.  Davidson is like a shadow, an influential and widely acclaimed author that everyone seemed to love but now hardly anyone knows or talks about anymore. 

General thoughts

As far as The Seventies and newer stories, I largely liked Davidson’s older works much more than the newer ones. I have been reading through the collection slowly to avoid burn out but so much of the later stories just went straight over my head. Should I have DNF’d? Idk, I wanted to sample the works across the years.  I can’t say why the last bunch were my least favorites other than that I just tended to not understand them, or be bored by the long and winding trails from point A to point Avram.

I’ve been reading the collection since the end of January and definitely struggled at times, but feel like I learned a lot about genre history, general history, many odd facts, and about myself and my own reading habits where I love eclectic & brilliant minds but struggle to keep up sometimes.  If an author gives the editors hell and is considered Out There, I will gravitate towards it. (Y’all remember the Bukowski kick I went on recently)? That said, I can also admit when an author is just far, far too smart for me.

In the afterward, Ray Bradbury (my favorite short fiction writer, sorry Avram) agrees and stresses that reading one or two stories a night depending on the length is the best and only way to consume a book like this.  I also would stress that Davidson’s style starts ‘in a fog’ (Bradbury) and then slowly reveals itself, often times making us wait until the last paragraph or even the last sentence to get “the point” of the story. And oh, you’d better have been able to follow Davidson’s train of thought along the way too 😅. That’s where he lost me towards the end.

I’m not sad. I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading these. I tried. If you want to try too, go for it. I think this is a great collection to get some highlights of his work and related words from other authors. I think Davidson has some great classic stories that deserve to stay in circulation today, but there’s always going to be a lot of ‘other’ to wade through.

The 70’s

IMG_20230329_102603796

From my final batch of stories, I’d like to nod to my favorites: essentially everything from the 70’s I loved except Manatee Gal, Wont You Come Out Tonight. Crazy Old Lady is sad and Selectra Six-Ten is hilarious. Obviously Polly Charms has much attention as well.

The 80’s & 90’s

IMG_20230329_102609052_HDR

This final batch just did not connect with me. The Slovo Stove was probably my favorite because if nothing else, I thought the running joke and legitimate but impossible interest in obscure customs was hilarious. As a group these went over my head

Final thoughts

The last thing I’ll do is share an article I found by Henry Wessels

He wrote one thing that I feel wholeheartedly and have mentioned before while reading some of these stories, which is that reading Davidson just makes me feel like my reading is lacking in so many ways.  So many great authors and great  stories are mentioned that I’ve never even heard of. It makes me feel inadequate 😅 I hope Wessels won’t care that I linked to his article, it’s something I do when frankly someone just says something more eloquently than I can!

Anyway, these are my thoughts and I hope you’ll check out my other writing on Avram Davidson as I’ve made my way through this wild, difficult, wonderful book!

Categories
audiobooks Fiction Mysteries Science Fiction

The Avram Davidson Treasury: The Sixties (How I’m Getting the Hang of This)

I’m still reading a story here and a story there, and I’ve now made it through The Sixties! The first thing I’d recommend doing is checking out my intro post that also covered stories from the fifties, as I’m not going to repeat myself about the author and collection in general

IMG_20230223_101121783

In general

Jumping right in, I think I moderately enjoyed the stories from the Sixties more than the Fifties.  Davidson’s penchant for language and linguistics came out in a more accessible format for someone like me, who’s not a genius and just likes reading good stories.

The Real MVP is Spider Robinson’s intro to Sacheverell, because it’s hilarious and now I want to read everything Spider has written. Anyone recommend where to start?

The magic of a google search

Many more good points were made by the authors introducing the stories, the main one being that most of the time Davidson omits “the point” on purpose, and leaves the reader to connect the dots.  I’m not good at this.  LeGuin pointed out that he throws in a lot of humor and extras, to see if people know what they mean, like the term “freemartin”, and it enhances the stories obviously if you catch his hints. That said, I’m so worried that I’m missing a lot of jokes and insights 🤣

A few of the stories so far have just made no sense to me whatsoever, so I jotted down a few keywords and did a Google search. Walla, boom, like magic, a historical backdrop popped out. (I’m looking at you, The Price of a Charm).

Frankly I’d just love to read these stories with someone who’s a better literary critic, because most of my insights are coming from the author intros and I’d miss the cool things if not for them, but I’m getting the hang of this!

Let’s talk about a few specific stories for kicks:
  • I read The Sources of the Nile twice, a few days apart, and I made more connections the second time around. Davidson had a lot of angst about what publishers & the public are looking for, I think, and he probably got a kick out of  writing this one
  • The Affair at Lahore Cantonment won an Edgar Award for best short story, and was on my reading list anyway for “reading that takes place in, or has meaning in London“. Personally I’m most enjoying the stories influenced by Davidson’s travels.  On the other hand, this is one of the stories that makes me feel like I don’t appreciate good literature enough.
  • I’m probably dumb. I thought Revolver had some good use of irony but I couldn’t see the humor 🤣
  • The Tail-Tied Kings … This was just weird and mildly disturbing, I don’t want to think about it any more LOL
  • The Price of a Charm I already mentioned above: this is the story that could have been read for what it was, until the end, where something happened and cast the rest into a light that made no sense. Well, insert Sarajevo into a search engine and BAM (no pun intended), a little background carries some of these stories a long way!
  • Sacheverell I also mentioned above, frankly I just took the story for it’s surface value (some guy kidnapped a talking monkey) but it’s a layered story. I just listened to a podcast about it prior to writing this. Anyway, the real MVP was Spider Robinson’s intro to the story
  • The House the Blakeney’s Built I also mentioned above, especially about LeGuin’s intro too.  This is a great story about what Davidson thought a colony would look like about 500 years after a family’s ship crashed.  Hint: it’s not Star Trek where everyone is still a genius.  I loved this one and how the language had devolved. Real or fake, he can write language!
  • The Goobers was straightforward and fun, loved the ending
  • The Power of Every Root … I feel like I should have guessed the ending based off the title but I had gotten too lost in Davidson’s depictions of everything.  As I said, the stories influenced by his travels are my favorites and I’m pretty sure he loved Mexico

Give me a couple more weeks and I’ll read the Seventies! I am reading this collection through a hardcover that I bought years ago, and partially through Audible as the book is currently free with membership. That small print gets me after a while! As always, all opinions are my own

Categories
Biographies, Memoirs, Nonfiction Fantasy Paranormal

Book Tour Stop: A Cup of Tea at the Mouth of Hell by Luke Tarzian

Thanks as always to Escapist Book Tours for having me on their tour for A Cup of Tea at the Mouth of Hell by Luke Tarzian! You can check out the book tour’s home page, see the other posts, and find out about the author at the link there!

A Cup of Tea at the Mouth of Hell book cover

Here’s the book blurb:

BRIEFLY, A WORD ABOUT ORDER

Order is the focal point around which existence revolves. Without order there is only chaos. And in the halls of Damnation (pronounced Dam-NAWT-ion, thank you kindly) the first sign of impending chaos is a cup of tea made without the water having first been well and properly boiled in a kettle.

Why is this relevant, O nameless narrator, you ask? Who cares about the preparatory order of tea in the fires of Hell?

Lucifer, dear reader. After all, how does one expect to properly greet the newcomers to Hell without having first had a hot cup of tea to bulwark the cold?

Behold The Morning Star, frantic on the annual Morning of Souls, the arrival of Damnation’s newest recruits.

Someone has misplaced the kettle.

See Also: Sad Boi Searches for His Missing Tea Kettle • Bring Your Tissues • Me, Myself, and I and the Times We Got High

My Thoughts:

I have a hard time rating emotional outpourings, it feels wrong to!! How do you even?  What can you say? The story itself is whimsy, clever, and a mix of funny and slightly hard to push through since I also lost a parent very recently and things are a bit .. fresh 

The novelette starts in one place and ends somewhere totally different.  Join the characters for Lucifer’s therapy session and a joint at a hellish pizza parlor before having a look at the author’s own life.

The story itself is a bit hard to follow in that at first the demon, Stoudemire, is telling the story, then there’s a “real life” letter thrown in, followed by more demon narration before Lucifer is the final voice. He uses the same phrases as Stoudemire too so while it’s not relevant to the story itself, it’s tough for me to follow similar voices on both narrators. Lastly, it switches back to the “real life” narrator before the third section, which is a lovely collection of the  author’s own meditations on grief, trauma, writing. I think my point is that the organization threw me off

But overall? Totally recommend. This is great. It’s funny. It’s “whimsy Hell” and you’re traversing trauma and The Phallic Forest at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it (and read it twice), I just think I’d have loved it if he would have grouped the fiction and nonfiction into their own sections to let the respective narratives flow.  I’ve actually got copies of the author’s books and 100% going to check them out sooner rather than later.

A Cup of Tea at the Mouth of Hell quotes (ig) (1)

Once again, thanks so much to Escapist Book Tours for having me. I found my copy of A Cup of Tea at the Mouth of Hell on Kindle Unlimited and as always, all opinions are my own ♥️

Categories
Science Fiction

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang (Book Thoughts)

Bookish Quick Facts:

  • Title: Exhalation: Stories
  • Author: Ted Chiang
  • Publisher & Release: Knopf, 2019 (this edition anyway)
  • Length: 368 pages
  • Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I finished the Exhalation collection yesterday and after browsing the top reviews on GoodReads, immediately decided that I was not smart enough to write any kind of reaction to this collection.  I actually sprung a headache trying to decipher some of these people’s essays.  Anyway, then I shook myself out of that idiotic train of thought because if a review is more complex than the original text, and it’s giving my fairly literate brain a headache, what service is it doing?

As I was dwelling on the complexity and profundity I didn’t feel, it occurred to me that I read most of this book while in a haze of exhaustion and general feelings of “f*ck me my face hurts”, but I also don’t think that affected my absorption or comprehension of the text and ideas.  So anyway, go read BlackOxford’s review if you want to feel smart, read mine if you want to feel like not a theological historian 🤣

Was I reading in a brain haze this week? Yes. Did I find any profound ideological connection to this? Not really. Did I enjoy reading it? Heck yes. Chiang has a straightforward, no nonsense writing style that is easy to read while not being overwhelming.  One can pick or choose how deeply to dive into the context of any given story. I’ll admit I’m not in the best place to emotionally connect to stories right now though, so when I revisit Chiang in the future I’ll be sure to do so in a clear mind.

As in any collection (short stories aren’t necessarily my favorite thing to read) there are some really great stories, as well as some that I didn’t connect with at all. Some ideas were interesting enough that I would put the book down and think it out a bit prior to reading the next, while some I admit my reaction to was: huh?

One thing I liked was that no matter how off track Chiang would get in the middle of a story, even if I had NO clue how he was going from point A to point C, he would wrap each story up with a powerful conclusion that let me come around and say -“OH OK yes that’s what he was getting at”! As in, he left no doubt between the conclusion and the author’s note what the takeaway idea/food for thought was intended to be.

My favorite part of the book in general was how each story had an author’s note at the end, so that the process of reading felt more like a conversation. It was interesting to hear where he got his inspiration from, what ideas were important, and he tossed in a few anecdotes too.  Any major questions I had were usually answered by the author’s note which is somewhat validating because I assumed it meant I was asking the right questions.

To talk about a few specific stories and ideas I liked –

The Lifecycle of Software Objects – I’m still just wondering what exactly that lady intended to do to that robot at the end. That said, it was a cool story (and the longest at 150 pages) because you can’t go wrong with AI and ethics and Chiang certainly didn’t.  I also liked all the platonic, unrequited, interesting character relationships that evolved as the humans and AI interacted with one another.

My favorite story to read was The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling, because I just think it’s cool to examine memory and remembrance and the written form across cultures and society. I would certainly not want to remember every detail and argument of my life, I would go absolutely insane.  It was the most relatable to me as far as the forgiving vs forgetting theme and how we piece memories together. Oh Nicole, I feel you.

In Exhalation: so this was probably the most “profound” story but I’m a critical care nurse in real life and I don’t need anyone to preach inevitability to me.  Been there, had that existential crisis already. The robot surgery was for sure an interesting idea.

So yes, yes, go examine your life and have profound thoughts, for sure, don’t let me dissuade you from writing a dissertation on this story but I’m only here to enjoy the ride.

The other story that stood out was Omphalos and the lady that had to reassess her world view regarding the existence of God as science evolved.  It was another story where I wasn’t sure what Chiang was getting at until the end and I ended up struck by the theme of finding your own peace and satisfaction in the day to day, and, I guess finding your own validation.

Overall, the best I can do is advise people to read Chiang on a fresh brain and stay open minded throughout each story, since the ending always brings the story around full circle. Don’t let a few really, really smart sounding reviews and elitists scare you away.

I would definitely recommend Chiang to hard sci-fi fans and those who like to chew on big ideas, or, those who just enjoy a good story.  There’s enough slice of life thrown in that I  think just about anyone can read these and get some enjoyment out of it.

What made me feel small today was standing under these 8+ foot fall sunflower type variants, I don’t need the graveyard of space to feel like an inevitable ant thanks 🤣

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