Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Done: "Kwik Krimes" edited by Otto Penzler

Done: Kwik Krimes by Otto Penzler, 2013, 9781612183008.

Flash fiction collection.  Some stories are better than others.  Some stories are so-so  Some authors need more practice in writing short form because the stories feel like they are longer forms that were cut down to size.  I prefer the ones that feel like a complete story in themselves.  I may want to know more about the characters or aftermath but I enjoy the stories as they stand by themselves.  Like a good anecdote told by a friend or relative - there's no need to flesh it out.

About half the authors were working for an O. Henry twist.  81 stories.  Some authors are online flash fiction people.  Some authors are short story people.  Some authors are novelists. With 81 stories I cannot easily skim back through and pick favorites.  But, I'll try.

Comments:
1.  Charles Ardai has two stories with one under his Aleas alias. 
2.  Patricia Abbott's.
3.  Wigwam Club!  Hah!  I've been listening to James M. Cain's Cocktail Waitress and the main character goes to the Wigwam Club.  I knew I'd read that before.  The setting is in Ardai's story.
4.  Raymond Benson had a good one with modern turn on Hansel and Gretel, Baba Yaga, and Red Riding Hood.
5. Joe Clifford's dumb-ass, junkie mob son killing a guy trying to help him.
6.  Crider's.
7.  Sean Doolittle's tale about former grifters going back to theivery after dropping their daughter off at her first year of college.
8.  Brendan DuBois's pro thief in a small town casing an armored car robbery.
9.  Warren C. Easley with young girl figuring out her mother's boyfriend killed the girl's grandfather.
10.  Christa Faust's with a woman who has men pay to beat her up. 
11.  Matthew C. Funk's about a 12-year-old killer gangbanger.
12.  Chris Grandebstein's cop drama where the characters are dogs in a park.
13.  John Kenyon's story told in reverse time about an arsonist who falls fall a burn victim he responsible for.
14.  Chaarles McLeod's with a man telling a story where thugs forced him to pistol whip his father.