I can’t Find who started the Friday Five book blog meme. It seems to crop up in many different style such as “Five for Friday”, “Five on Friday” , “FridayFive Challenge”. I also can’t find a topic list like you would have for the Six on Sunday meme. Therefore I am just doing my own thing and setting my own topics just so I can chat books with you.
This weeks topic is:
Short Story Collections
Short story collections are great. If you have a busy day with 15 mins here and 20 mins there it allows you to dip in and out of reading a story or two every time you have a break. Its a great way to dive back into worlds you love or tide you over till the next book in the series comes out. Anthologies are also a great way to discover new authors, try new genres and just play around.
I actually have two categories in my for you today – Single author collections where it is short stories from a single author and Anthologies that have various stories from multiple authors, usually around a similar topic/inspiration or theme. I could add a more and more especially if I included collections of short stories from a particular series (maybe that’s a separate list) but maybe its best I keep it simple for now.
Single Author collections
Miniatures / A very Scalzi Christmas
John Scalzi
My Review – A very Scalzi Christmas
I have made it no secret how much I enjoy Scalzi’s writing and his shorts are just as good at his full novels. The humour and inventiveness are just as apparent. If you have watched Love-death-robots on Netflix you have probably enjoyed some of his short fiction without with a couple of the 4 stories he has penned for the series coming from these anthologies. I also really adore his series of shorts and novellas from his Old Man’s war universe.
The Paper Menagerie and other stories
Ken Liu
I have to admit it took me a very long time to read this collection as it is one of those gorgeous works that just hurts you down into your soul. This collection has put me into a slump time and time again as it is just gorgeous. Each story has so much depth that I end up thinking about each individual one for days. Its just stunning. I haven’t ventured into Liu’s full novels yet but if they are half as beautiful as this they will be amazing. Liu also does a lot of translation work and an honourable mention should be Invisible planets (I haven’t finished this anthology yet) which is compiled and translated by Ken Liu and features 13 stories from Chinese Sci-fi authors.
Anthologies
Robots vs Fairies
Various
This is such a fun collection. The premise is that invited authors could choose to write about robots or fairies and that they battle it out with the reader deciding who wins – Robots or Fairies. Again if you are a fan of Love-death-Robots on Netflix this is where Scalzi’s Three Robots short was originally featured. It also contains a short from Ken Liu. It has a little bit Sci-fi a little bit Fantasy and a whole bunch of genre melding works that are just so interesting.
A thousand Beginnings and Endings
Various
This collection is from We Need Diverse Books and it focuses on stories from a diverse range of Asian cultures writing by Asian Authors and authors of Asian decent. A lot of these were retellings of traditional folklore tales and the authors introductions to the cultures and why they choose to write the stories were just as interesting and diverse as the stories themselves.
A Universe of Wishes
Various
I recently finished this anthology and it was the inspiration for this post. It is another Anthology from We Need Diverse Books and it features diversity of all kinds. There is a really nice mix of Sci-fi and fantasy within the book as well as a mix of well known authors and debuts, shorts from known series, retellings and new works. I really enjoyed it.
Do you have any favourite short story collections or anthologies? Are there any you think I should check out?
I would love to chat all things bookish with you! You can comment down below or find me on Twitter or Goodreads!
Happy Reading!
Fi's Bibliofiles 