Day 315 Nov 10, 2019

UNCLE CHARLE by Christy Mann

Stories We Tell After Midnight – 2019

Horror – 4 Pages

Probably the most redundant little short story I’ve ever read. The author said the same things multiple times and used a handful of nouns repeatedly. Unnecessarily so. The story itself was limp noodle, too.

*

Day 316 Nov 11, 2019

THE CARTOONIST by Fredric Brown

Nightmares and Geezenstacks – 1961

Science Fiction – 8 Pages

This goofy little tale deals with interdimensional travel and perspective mingling with circumstances. It’s fun enough, but has little punch, and the humor was so-so. Purposefully weird, but tepid in that.

***

Day 317 Nov 12, 2019

GOT SPIRIT by Judy Budnitz

Flying Leap – 1998

General – 10 Pages

Cheerleaders are evil and crazy, it’s a fact, and makes stories about cheerleaders so much fun. This one takes it up about ten notches, using the mean girl mold and expanding until everything goes up in flames. Great writing. Quirky and bleak at the same time. I am really digging these stories.

*****

Day 318 Nov 13, 2019

ALL THE KING’S MEN by Jeffrey Ford

Mad Hatters and March Hares – 2017

Fantasy – 15 Pages

This one’s a take on Humpty Dumpty’s great fall. It’s slow going and obvious, aside from the bits about Humpty’s personality and magic abilities. I really like how much of a dick the egg was, but it wasn’t enough to carry the story. Still, sufficiently entertaining to keep me engaged, so even when lacking it was far from bad.

***

Day 319 Nov 14, 2019

MOONLIGHT WHOOPEE CUSHION SONATA by Tom Robbins

Wild Ducks Flying Backward – 2005 (story originally published in After Yesterday’s Crash, 1995)

General – 5 Pages

A story about farts. It doesn’t really have any kind of arc, but why should it? It’s literally just about farts. It’s funny, at one windy passage, I barked aloud. Tom Robbins is a wild man.

***

Day 320 Nov 15, 2019

RUN, RABBIT by Angela Slatter

Mad Hatters and March Hares – 2017

Crime – 8 Pages

Alice noir. Rabbit is on the run and hanging in slum bars talking to slummy men and women. It’s a fun lens to put over the idea, darkening it and fraying the edges. Bleak and textured. I’ve read this kind of thing before with Pooh, with Dorothy, with Little Red. Good, but predictable.

***

Day 321 Nov 16, 2019

REVOLVER by Michael Patrick Hicks

REVOLVER – 2015

Horror – 40 Pages (about, digital)

Like Running Man, but in a regular studio only. Thinly veiled and slightly exaggerated Fox News anchors purchase a woman’s suicide and berate and whatnot. It’s not exactly fun, but that you can guess where it’s going—well, one of three ways—makes it. The narrator is the underdog and the story is like Rocky getting beat down before digging into the reserve to knock somebody out in the 15th round. So, actually fun, I guess. Totally engaging. Purposefully, usefully infuriating. Kind of easy target subject matter to entertain this reader.

*****