Shady AcresThis is a collection of short stories. If you read Mark’s other collection The Marfa Lights—and you should have, especially since this fellow said to—this will feel like picking up right where you left off.

My mini-reviews of each story:

  • Shady Acres: This story is the longest in the book, and interweaves the life stories of residents and staff at the Shady Acres retirement community. It’s a moving story, with many poignant moments, and some very funny ones as well. The “main” character does something rather dubious early on, but by the end, I felt more sympathy for him. I enjoyed this story, and would happily read more stories in this setting.
  • A Warm Body: A quick sketch of a post-apocalyptic world. I guessed the twist ahead of time, but that’s probably because I’ve played many a post-apocalypse role-playing game. It’s a quick glimpse into a grim, brutal world. Made me think a little of Harlan Ellison.
  • Gramps’s Stereo: In the afterword, Mark explains that this story was partly inspired by the film Gran Torino. That’s one of my favorite films, so maybe that’s why I liked this one so much.
  • Jeopardy: A young man returns home to his bickering parents with some surprising news. Now, here again, I guessed what the twist would be; but the story isn’t really about the twist as much as it is about the atmosphere and setting the scene. Of all the stories in this collection, this is the one that I could have most easily identified as the work of the same author who penned The Irrepairable Past. The tone feels very similar to me.
  • Forever: Now this one is peculiar. As explained in the afterword, it strikes many readers, including me, in a very different way than the author intended. Not to give too much away, but the protagonist’s behavior can be interpreted in a number of ways. And here’s the weird part: I was happy that the story turned out differently than I expected it to, even though it might seem more of a “conventional” ending. In other words, I was surprised by how unsurprising it was, if that makes sense. 
  • Getting Through the Night: This story is about a man caring for his young daughter after a car accident leaves her on life support. I admit, I kind of hurried through this one.  It was just too grim for me, but that’s not a criticism of the writing, which is quite good, of course. And the backstory of how Mark came up with the idea is really interesting. So it’s not that it’s a bad story; it was just…. too dark for my tastes. Your mileage may vary.
  • My First True Love: Probably the most relatable story in the whole collection—I think everybody probably has a story kind of like this one in their past. There’s a character in it named Luilu, which made me think of Leeloo from The Fifth Element, even though there’s really no connection otherwise—but still, aren’t those just fun names to say?
  • Sunbaked Sand: I view this story almost as a kind of companion piece to “Jeopardy,” but with this one, I totally did not see the “twist” coming. (By the way, calling these “twists” kind of cheapens it—it’s more like revelations about people that make us see them differently. I’m using “twist” as shorthand here.) In any case, this story is really good. It only has two characters who are in conflict for most of it, and at the end, you feel a ton of sympathy for both of them. 
  • He Slept: This story epitomizes what I consider Mark’s signature talent, which is his ability to take a minor incident from life; the sort of thing that 99 out of 100 people would scarcely think about, and expand upon it to tell a compelling story. (To be fair, “Getting Through the Night” also does this, but if I were introducing somebody to Mark’s work, I’d recommend this one.)
  • Tentacles: A haunting depiction of how abusive behavior can ruin many lives. It’s dark, it’s powerful, and it has this other sort of weird, unexplained thing going on in the background that gives it a very unique vibe. Probably my second-favorite story in the collection.
  • Who Is Maureen Nesbitt?: I think this is the shortest story in the collection, which makes it ironic that it will be the one I write the most words about. Part of it is that it’s a big departure from Mark’s typical style of melancholic literary fiction. This one is sci-fi. And it’s funny. It takes place in a world where there are things called “Information Zones” or “izzies,” which are essentially artificial intelligences that have access to all the information on the internet—and then some. And the izzies have developed personalities of their own. They’re almost like mischievous ghosts. I’m not sure exactly when Mark wrote this, but I’m pretty sure it was before the rise of things like Siri and Alexa. Yes, this story is short, but I absolutely loved it. I want to read more stories set in this world—there’s so much potential in this concept. This is one of those that you read and just shake your head and go, “Damn, I wish I’d thought of that.”

All in all, this is a fine collection, with plenty of variety. Every story has its own unique “flavor,” and the notes at the end where Mark discusses the story-behind-the-story are quite interesting in themselves. Studying the way he draws inspiration from the most seemingly-insignificant things is a great technique for writers to cultivate. Give Shady Acres a try. 

[How many people still use the term “bleg,” I wonder? Andrew Sullivan used to use the term a lot, but I haven’t seen it lately…]

At the risk of becoming repetitive: please, please, please go read the latest short story by Noah Goats. It’s free to read on his blog.

I love all Noah’s work, as you know, but this is a departure from his usual humorous style. It’s much more in the realm of speculative fiction or even horror, depending how you look at it.

It’s everything I think a short story should be: concisely evocative, moving, and open to multiple interpretations. Noah is turning out great stories at a nearly McCollum-esque pace. I’m hoping he will collect them all in a book at some point. At any rate, his work deserves to be widely-read.

PFHTI heard about this short story thanks to Lydia Schoch’s review. I encourage you to read her take as well, because she’s much better at writing these things without spoilers than I am. But I’m going to try anyway, because I enjoyed this tale quite a lot.

As Lydia notes, there are few stories that mention menstruation. Which is odd if you think about it, because it’s a normal part of life for 50% of the population. But apparently it’s a topic people prefer not to talk about—and demons too, as Terazael, the bloodthirsty-but-rather-helpless monster summoned in this story demonstrates. (You know, I never realized until just now that “demonstrate” has the word “demon” in it.)

Anyway, I can’t tell you much about this story without spoiling it, other than to say that it’s a delightful comedy about a woman who summons a demon while she’s on her period, and the comical antics and misunderstandings that follow. Now, if that’s not an original and intriguing enough concept to catch your attention, I don’t know what is.

Pads For His Throne is very short, but don’t let that stop you from picking it up. It’s not the size of the book that matters; it’s the size of the laughs you get from the story, and there are some big ones in here. 

51Uao-BtASL-1._SX321_BO1,204,203,200_W.S. Gilbert is a major reason—possibly the major reason—I’m a writer. As a teenager, my mom introduced me to the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and I was fascinated by Gilbert’s lyrics, and then later, by his dialogues and his entire style of storytelling. He wrote stories that were clever and strange and witty, and that usually included some veiled social commentary. And as often as not, he did it in rhymes that were both intricate and yet easy to understand, thanks to his massive vocabulary. 

And the really amazing thing is that so much of his commentary still seems relevant. Sometimes, I read about politics, and immediately what comes to my mind is some line of Gilbert’s, though he died more than a century ago. That’s a testament to the power of his words and his ideas.

At some point, probably around the age of 14 or 15 years old, I unconsciously began thinking, I want to be like that!

Strangely, I was always drawn more to Gilbert’s poems and his stage works than to his short stories. So when I saw that Andrew Crowther, the secretary of W.S. Gilbert Society, had released a collection of Gilbert’s short stories, I realized I needed to seize the opportunity to correct that.

Most of the stories contain Gilbert’s trademark sense of humor—the concept of introducing tropes of fairy tales and stage plays with practical, everyday life occurs frequently. I admit that the stories about pantomime and harlequinade baffle me to a degree. I read about pantomime, and I still don’t fully “get” it, and as a result, don’t totally get Gilbert’s stories riffing on them, either. It probably made sense to people who were familiar with pantomime. I’m not saying these stories are bad—far from it. “The Fairy’s Dilemma” in particular is quite good, it’s just hard for me to appreciate the Harlequin references.

Many of the stories in the collection were later adapted by Gilbert for the stage. Such is the case withAn Elixir of Love”, which he later turned into an operetta set by Sullivan, The Sorcerer.

I’ve always thought The Sorcerer was one of the weaker G&S operettas. But “An Elixir of Love” is absolutely hilarious. I laughed out loud multiple times reading it—the humorous idea of ordinary, sober businessmen who happen to deal in supernatural curses and love potions etc. is played to great effect here. (It’s in The Sorcerer too, but in my opinion, it just kind of gets lost amid all the demon-summoning.)

“Wide Awake” is an exercise in one of Gilbert’s other favorite motifs: people disguising their pure, black-hearted selfishness with a sop to politeness and decorum. Most of the characters are out for themselves, but they try to cloak it with manners and solicitude. 

“A Tale of a Dry Plate” is short and very sweet.

“The Story of a Twelfth Cake” is extremely funny and clever. It is marred by one unfortunate thing that I’ll address shortly, but overall it might be the funniest story in the collection. It’s another that Gilbert later adapted for the stage. 

“Lady Mildred’s Little Escapade” is a delightful tale—probably packed more of a punch in Victorian times than today, just because of changing social mores, but it’s still very clever.

“A Christian Frame of Mind” is downright shocking, for its time. A Swiftian satire, I would say.

There are more stories in this collection, and all of them are must-reads for Gilbert fans, and should-probably-reads for everyone else. And now, about that one little thing I have to address.

To a degree, everyone is a product of their time and place. Gilbert lived in Victorian England, and was a middle-class and later wealthy man. As you might expect, he held many of the typical attitudes of his time on such matters as race and sex. He was, by nature, a kind-hearted man, and so generally he seems well-disposed towards people, but that doesn’t stop him from writing things that modern readers will find shocking. The “n” word occurs in these pages, so be warned. Similarly, while Gilbert is no misogynist, and many of his female characters are actually quite interesting, there’s no doubt he could be patronizing towards them at times.

The book also includes Gilbert’s own illustrations to accompany his stories. These are a nice addition, although here again there is a problem with how Gilbert depicts non-white characters. (Interestingly, they are often depicted sympathetically in the stories.) Nevertheless, I do agree with the decision to present the stories and drawings uncensored, as Gilbert originally intended. The point of these things is, at least partly, their value as reflections of a bygone era, and it’s important for history’s sake to get an undistorted view of it, for good or ill.

Now, I know this book is a departure from what most people read. Indeed, Mr. Crowther had to work very hard to find a publisher for it. In this world of thrillers and horror and literary fiction, the modern reader may ask, “Why should I read this book of satirical Victorian fairy tales?”

Well, I’m going to make that case.

First of all, I have to address the fact that most of the modern books I read aren’t discernibly Gilbertian, unless you want to count Noah Goats’s comic novels, but he’s closer to a literary descendant of Wodehouse than Gilbert. Moreover, the books I’ve written aren’t especially Gilbertian. The influence that H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers and various pulp and YA science-fiction authors had upon me is much more obvious. And yet, when you ask who got me into this writing business, there’s absolutely no question that the answer is Gilbert.

Precisely because Gilbert’s stories are mostly fairy tales and/or deal with superficially simple things like the stereotypical characters of low comedy, they are accessible as fiction. But because Gilbert was putting his own spin on them—playing with the conventions of fiction and of theater, they get at the most basic principles of telling a story. There’s always a lot more going on under the surface of a Gilbert story than you realize at first, and that’s what makes them interesting: they teach you how to think about fiction.

Short stories are better suited to experimentation than novels are. If you write a whole novel with an odd twist or a “meta” ending, there’s a huge risk you’ll leave the reader feeling like they’ve been shortchanged—like they invested in something that didn’t pan out. Whereas short stories encourage twists and unexpected endings. The goal of a short story is to surprise, to take a common trope and turn it on its head. This is what Gilbert excelled at.

As I was reading The Triumph of Vice, I realized Gilbert has a lot in common with my other unlikely storytelling hero, the great game-designer Chris Avellone. Both of them tell stories that upend the common conventions of their chosen medium. Gilbert wrote of honest burglars and incompetent demons, just as Avellone writes Dungeons-and-Dragons fantasy with chaste succubi and super-powerful rats.   

This willingness to play with tropes, to subvert convention, is the sign of somebody who really knows their stuff. When you’re a master of the craft, you know which rules you can break, and you’re always testing the limits. Gilbert was a great stage director because he was always pushing the edge of what stage directors could do.

And that’s what I want you to take away from this: Gilbert was great at what he did, and reading his work offers you a chance to see a brilliant creative mind working in a time very different from our own, without the constraints of current fads and fashion. Somebody who wrote nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, and his work is still read today. That’s what every writer wants, isn’t it?

mlI blogged about Mark Paxson’s story The Marfa Lights a while back. This week I finally got around to reading the rest of the stories in the collection, and I enjoyed them tremendously. I think my favorites were the post-apocalyptic poem (bonus points to Mark for his use of the excellent word “gloaming”) and the sci-fi tale laced with David Bowie references. All the stories are quite good.

Some of the stories have a bit of a Twilight Zone-like feel to them, which I liked quite a lot. Like Phillip McCollum, Mark has a knack for setting the reader up for a surprising ending in a subtle and economical way.

Branded-Book-Cover-e1531246444684Speaking of Phillip, I blogged about him recently as well, and since then he’s just kept on putting out more terrific stories. Branded and Halfway are two of his most recent works that I’ve enjoyed lately.

Both Phillip and Mark are very adventurous in their writing. While there are certain themes that recur, they are always experimenting–trying on different voices, styles and genres, and it never fails to make for an engaging read.

Ever since I first started dabbling in the writing business, I’ve read numerous people claiming that short stories aren’t read much outside of schools and small literary circles. If you want wide acclaim as an author, goes the conventional wisdom, you’ve got to write novels.

Halfway-Book-CoverThis has always baffled me. Modern audiences are famous for their short attention spans. If anything, you’d think they would be more interested in a short tale that can be finished in a few minutes or an hour than a long, drawn-out novel. (Or, as is even more popular, series of novels.)

Think about it: when it comes to other entertainment, most people watch sit-coms or hour-long episodic dramas. A sizable but somewhat smaller audience goes to two-hour movies. And only hardcore artsy types go to sit through really long movies or, for the truly committed, operas. Why is this situation reversed when it comes to literature?

Maybe in the past you could have said it was because novels were all that was widely available, but the internet changed that dynamic in two ways. The first is simple economics–you can get a good short story collection like The Marfa Lights for ninety-nine cents on Kindle. Phillip publishes his work on his blog. You can get good writing while spending less of your time and money than a novel requires.

The second thing is that the internet makes it easy to discover authors that big publishing outfits haven’t taken yet because they are too risk-averse. I would never have read the work of Mark, Phillip, and other terrific indie authors if not for the internet.

So why aren’t the short, independently-published stories flourishing? Talented writers are all around us and easier to find than ever. The big publishers’ stranglehold has been broken, just as the major traditional news outlets have lost out to bloggers and independent, specialized news services. What is holding so many readers back?

In a way, novels from big-name authors and publishers are like major Hollywood movie franchises, in that they are a relatively safe investment. Audiences go to them because they know pretty much what to expect. Similarly, when it comes to novels, people feel like they can be confident about what they’re getting–especially once they know a certain genre or author. And moreover, once you get into a novel, you (usually) don’t have to worry about changing gears and getting reintroduced to a new situation and set of characters with every new chapter.¹

Short story collections, by definition, can’t be like this. There has to be variation in them, or reading the collection will be a slog. For that matter, writing such a collection would be a slog. Almost every writer likes to try out different things now and then.²

So consumers are still playing it close to the vest with their entertainment choices. Most of them would rather invest in novels from major authors and publishers, from which they think they know what to expect. (Ironically, consumers of news couldn’t wait to jump at any excuse to ignore the traditional news outlets. They’re more careful with how they invest their entertainment budgets than who they trust to tell them the news.)

Don’t be like typical consumers. Give independent authors and short stories a shot. Reading is like anything else in life–if you want better than average return, you can’t just do what everyone else is doing and hope someone will give you exactly what you want. You have to be willing to be different if you want the best.

Footnotes

1. Lest anybody misinterpret what I’m saying here, I’m not claiming that novels are somehow intrinsically inferior to short stories. Some stories really do need to be 40,000 words or more in order to be told well. My point is just that I can’t see why novels should attract more readers than short stories. A satisfying story is a satisfying story, regardless of its length.

2. The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers, which contains one of my all-time favorite short stories, “The Repairer of Reputations”, is a good example. Chambers loosely tied the first four stories together using the sinister title character and some other elements, but the later stories gradually turn away from the weird and more to the romantic. But all the stories contain elements of weird horror and fin de siecle romance, so the reader is always a little uncertain of what’s going to happen next. That’s what makes it good.