ASIMOV, ISAAC; GRENBERG, MARTIN HARRY & OLANDER, JOSEPH O. (EDITORS) - 100 GREAT SCIENCE FICTION SHORT SHORT STORIES. Pan Books. 1978
Ultra-short, or Flash Fiction is
coming back into vogue online, though not yet as much as it should do in
printed book formats. There is an art
to giving a story in less than a thousand words that still has a beginning,
middle and an end. This collection shows just how well such stories can be
handled. Many of the great SF writers are included, Asimov, George R R Martin,
Roger Zelaney, Larry Niven, etc. Some of the stories are puns, as in Asimov’s
shamelessly groans inducing A Loint Of Paw. Others are much more serious. A dungeons and dragons fanatic gets his wish
to be in a real adventure, but he is shocked when his wish has been
misunderstood and he gets turned into a dragon, expected to kill the knights
bearing down on him. A sign at he end of the universe tells users which way up
it should go. The sign, and the story are deliberately written upside down. E
Martin Blake leaves a nearly blank story for telepaths to read. Some of the
stories would qualify as fantasy or as horror rather than as Science Fiction,
but that is by the by. The real quality is the brevity makes this ideal bedtime
reading or a book to carry on short journeys. There are stories here where the
titles are longer than the narrative. One is a mere three words in length. My
favourite is Danni Plachta’s The Man From When. In this a time traveler
arrives in a man’s house unexpectedly from the future. He laments that his time
machine used so much power it destroyed the world. The man is then shocked to learn that the traveler has only
moved back in time by eighteen minutes. http://www.asimovonline.com/
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