Microcosmic Tales

A collection of short stories, none longer than five pages, suffers from some unfortunate literary tendencies.. The confined writing space leaves no room for character development, simply the possibility to explore an abstract idea. Unfortunately, this largely manifests itself in gimmick stories, with "gotcha" conclusions that are actually obvious. Or worse, puns.

There is a nice portrait of a Superman-type coming to terms with a middle-aged type of existence. I came to the collection looking for a particular Eric Frank Russell story, and it was of the all-too-frequent "gotcha" variety, but it had some decent dialogue -- a true oddity in this collection.

Oh yeah, there are a couple of Fritz Leiber stories in here that would be worth show more your time. show less

I have a fondness for these short short sf/f stories of old. It's mostly nostalgia, though. Because while many of the stories in here are okay, interesting, fun, funny, there are still plenty of others that make you roll your eyes.The ideas are cliche, or telegraphed right from the start. Or the ending is a stupid joke. Or is a 'twist' that isn't a twist. Surprise, it's a girl! And then.. that baby turned out to be Hitler!Part of that is because this is an old anthology, and the ideas were fresh at the time. Part of that is because, I think, Asimov loved the stupid jokes.I really noticed a sharp contrast between the stories in here and the stories in Flash Fiction, a literary anthology. And I'm afraid it's a comparison that puts the show more literary one on top. Shocking, right?! But those stories have a better language flow to them and seem more character-oriented, perhaps. Are more interesting. Frequently made me go 'huh?' or 'what was the point?' but rarely or never made me roll my eyes at the end.Before I conclude, I want to rant at these older anthologies, particularly Asimov ones. DON'T COMMENT ON THE STORIES BEFORE I'VE READ THE STORIES! Asimov (I assume) thinks he's being funny when he throws in a one-liner like 'don't judge a book by its cover' or something, which completely spoils the story. These stories are short enough as it is, can't you let me go into it without any preconceived notions about it?I skip story intros unless I KNOW it's only talking about the author or something unspoily. But it's really hard to skip them when it's a few words or a sentence and it's right above the title.Surprisingly, I don't think I'd read this anthology before. Even though I had read several short short story anthologies in my schooldays. show less

This is the ultimate waiting room material--a book that carried me through the tedious moments of jury duty. It's a collection of short-short science fiction stories. 100 tales, each of which fills but a handful of pages. Many of them are humorous, some horrific. Plenty of them have been written by the great authors of science fiction. I'm tempted to say that all of the stories are good, because I can't remember a single klunker in the lot. Anyway, I'm keeping this gem on my shelf.
--J.