Review: A nice collection of sci-fi and fantasy flash fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 12, 2012
Flash fiction has been around for decades, but only recently has it been recognized as a distinct style of fictional literature and found its niche. Flash fiction is typically defined as a story told in less than 1,000 words, although I've seen some definitions that set the word count as low as a hundred words. According to writing.com, the challenge of writing flash fiction is "to tell a complete story in which every word is absolutely essential, to peel away the frills and lace until you're left with nothing but the hard, clean-scraped core of a story."I've previously reviewed a few flash fiction collections, and I found them to be a mixed bag. For a reader, it requires a mental shifting of gears to read and appreciate stories so short that they can be read in less than five minutes. For authors, the flash fiction style seems to encourage a different kind of thinking and a willingness to experiment.Author Milo James Fowler has put together twelve of his previously published flash fiction short stories. True to the title of the collection, most of the stories are in the realm of science fiction or fantasy. I enjoyed some stories very much, others a little less so, but all of the stories were worth reading. Among my favorites were "Scuttle," a picture of a man whose hyperactive imagination would prove to be fatal; "Suburban Legend," which may leave you with second thoughts about checking things online with Snopes; and "Captain Quasar and the 'If Only' Elixir of Opsanus Tau Prime," a mini space opera that would be a nice concept for a longer story.All-in-all, "1 Dozen" was well worth the hour I spent reading it.