One perfect word quickly comes to mind when trying to distill the effect of Theodore Jerome Cohen’s collection of short (truly short) stories in The Road Less Taken. The word is: Gripping. And I do not use that word lightly. I mean, utterly, sometimes devastatingly,...

Twisted Family Holidays Collection by JR Wirth is a collection of five short stories, written to take the reader on a journey of imagination. From the miniature world beneath the Christmas tree to an alternate reality where the mood of the protagonist is determined by...

Time is for Dragonflies and Angels by J.M. Erickson is a beautiful offering for fans of sci-fi and fantasy who are also into short stories and novellas. The collection features powerful themes, including parallel universes, man’s struggle to come to grips with his human predicament,...

I undertook this review with a degree of trepidation. Having read sci-fi collections previously, I had found some of the stories so oblique as to be virtually unintelligible. To my delight, however, Tales From The Universe turned out to be a collection of excellent stories,...

The Nettle Tree is an anthology of Western-inspired short stories edited by Kenneth Weene and Clayton Clifford Bye. The authors were presented with a challenge: create an original and different Western-themed story in 3,000 words of less. Thirteen writers' efforts are showcased in this volume,...

The Gods of HP Lovecraft by various authors is an entertaining collection of stories based on the monsters created by Lovecraft. An old woman despairs over a dying Earth and suffers nightmares about unusual creatures attacking her, creatures that couldn't possibly exist. Right? I enjoyed...

The Spare Room and Other Stories by brothers Joshua Danker-Dake and Sean Danker-Smith is an anthology of 26 original short stories across a variety of genres from fantasy to horror. The Gibbins Tree by Sean Danker-Smith is one of my favorites. It’s definitely on par...

The Nightingale Circus by Ioana Visan is a short story collection in the Broken People series. It tells the story of the fascinating members of the circus. We learn about their past, how they ended up at the circus and the work that they do,...

The advent of rail transformed mankind's opportunities to explore his world. Yet we are subconsciously aware of a dark side to this innovation that expresses itself in uneasy images, such as the stereotypical damsel tied to the railway lines and whispered tales of trains bound...

“The three o’ clock in the morning sessions” is described as a book on loss and unrequited love. However, several poems at the beginning paint love beautifully and are full of joy. Whether the tone is bittersweet is largely up to the reader’s interpretation. There...