Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very Short Stories

You can read any of these 80 stories whenever you have a free few minutes. From the very first story I was hooked. I wondered whether some of them were "short stories" at all but rather poetry or some other form. But no matter, they were funny, sad, dark and light. Very enjoyable and recommended.

I guess a pioneer collection of flash fiction. Magnificent! Very good selection by the editors Robert Shapard and James Thomas. Flash fiction - a perfect label for the emerging sub-genre. Congratulations Shapard and Thomas. I do recommend for the lovers of short fiction. Delight yourself.

These stories are beautifully written and crafted, so short, so significant. They are easy to read, hard to forget. Like stones dropped in wells, they ripple through your mind in ever widening rings.

Fabulous collection including stories by such well-known (and diverse) writers as Paul Theroux, Dave Eggers and Grace Paley, just to name a few. Highly readable with "flashes" of brilliance.

Maybe it's the pace of a society bedeviled by technology and the demands of busy lives. Maybe just an interesting form of fiction, concise, clear and sophisticated; in any case "flash" fiction challenges the parameters of the traditional short story, the editors asking, "How short can a story be and truly be a story?" With over eighty selections, this collection is representative of the creative efforts of those who have taken up the gauntlet, such writers as Paul Theroux, Jim Crace, Ann Hood, Rick Moody, Richard Bausch, Dave Eggers and John A McCaffrey. The subjects of these flash fictions are not minor or trivial, but distilled, much like poetry. Most important, they are memorable. Writer Richard Bausch ("1951"), a writer used to creating longer pieces, found in condensing his story that "in order to make it work in so small a space its true subject must be proportionately larger". Indeed, Bausch accomplishes much in a few pages, the power of loss and responsibility sitting upon the narrow shoulders of one small girl. Ann Hood's "The Doctor" dissects the weight of a father's death with elegant precision, a refusal to forgive the physician who now pursues the grieving daughter: "He can't lose my father and win the girl, too." In a paean to loneliness and frustration, Rick Moody's rambling "Drawer" contains the emotions of a lifetime, a man's inner diatribe at the pretensions of a woman who could not, would not give of herself, locked into the lexicon of her possessions, unavailable. "The Mesmerist" by Michael Knight is chilling, Svengali-like in intent, as one man assumes power over his unsuspecting victim, the young woman who has captured his imagination and his desire. These short stories are a welcome addition to any collection, not to mention, a handy volume to carry to appointments, filling the spare minutes with thoughtful tales we might otherwise not have time to enjoy. Considerably entertaining and of an excellent variety, the selections are brilliantly chosen by editors James Thomas and Robert Shapard, a decade after their first edition. Stark, dramatic and intense in its brevity, flash fiction appeals in its length and breadth of topic, each story a small jolt, a journey to another reality, if only for a few minutes of escape. Luan Gaines/2006.