Review: Enjoyable flash fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 18, 2012
Flash fiction is very delicate, because there is a very fine line between telling a short story and telling an incomplete story.  Fortunately, "Free Five" mostly contains the stories, although one of the tales could have been better had it been developed and lengthened just a little bit more.I'm not going to worry about giving basic plot descriptions; it would be too difficult to not give spoilers, and I think that the descriptions on the product page are adequate.The writing style of the author was very good; I was interested the entirety of each story.  I don't remember seeing any blatant typos.  I also felt like most of the tales had very definite endings, and they tended to be delightfully surprising.  The one exception is "I Spy With My Little Eye."  I wanted more with this story; it was almost as if it were intended to be a prologue to a novel.  It got me excited for a story but didn't tell me one.  It had a beginning but no middle or end.  Aside from that story, the other four were superb.Something I really enjoyed about this download (although I do see that another reviewer disagrees) is the author's notes at the end of each story.  He tells the reader the background for each story and how he thought of the plot.  I liked getting to know the author through these snippets; I didn't think they took away from the stories at all.  They're easy enough to skip, though, if you do dislike them.Overall, I really enjoyed the stories.  I'd love to read something a little bit longer from the author, but that's not to say he's bad at short stories.  He's one of the first people that I commend for writing flash fiction, and I definitely recommend this download.WARNINGS - Violence, Mild Language