Review: This Has to be the Shortest Short Story I've Found on Kindle so Far
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 02 18, 2012
There's plenty of ten minute long short stories on Kindle but this is the first two minute long read I've come across.  That doesn't earn it a rating of two stars though, I rate books on quality not quantity. I've rated plenty of under ten minute reads five stars.  What makes Loaners nothing special, is that once you've finished, there's nothing to stick with you, nothing to think about, nothing to make you turn to the person sitting beside you at the work lunch table and say, want to read this while I make my sandwich? It only takes two minutes to read.  Ravis Harnell has come up with a pretty cool idea for a short story.  A man in St Petersburg has taken up the hobby of floating around the neighbourhood using astral projection, however we start the story with him panicking as to where his physical body is, as it isn't where he left it on his latest out of body adventure.  Where has it gone?  Is it possible for it to leave and walk somewhere by itself? Has someone stolen it? What if he can't get it back?But that's pretty much it, we start the story not knowing where the body is and it seems Harnell couldn't really come up with much else. We certainly never feel the terror Theodore Crawford must have been experiencing or be able to feel enough for the character to care. Maybe if we'd been along for the ride before he left his body or while he was floating around the neighbourhood we may have felt some sort of empathy for him, but instead we just start with him wondering where his body is. Even having Theodore float around the main tourist sites of St Petersburg giving the reader a desire to visit one day, would have added to the experience of the tale.  I'm not really into co-author books, especially short stories, but maybe this is what Harnell needed to do.  Take his idea to another writer and team up with the other writer guiding him on what to do with his granted pretty cool idea.  If Loaners is still free you might as well download it, as I said it'll take you two minutes to read, so you won't loose anything but a few minutes of your life.  But if you've got to pay anything for this, I'd give it a miss.