short stories – Susan Hated Literature

12 APR

The cat who walked a thousand miles

reread in April, 2018 and loved it just as much.

A long time ago in Japan, when cats were new there, an earthquake shook Small Cat’s home, and her city caught fire. In escaping the fire she ran too far from her home and her fudoki. “The fudoki was the collection of stories about all the cats who had lived in a place. It described what made it a home, and what made the cats a family.” In fleeing the fire the Small Cat gets lost in the city but decides to follow the story of her aunts, The Cat Who Came From the North. And so she heads North. But she goes too far and soon is so far from home that she thinks she will never find her way to her fudoki again.

25 NOV

The high mountains of Portugal

This book. I just. Okay, to start with I wasn’t sure I was even going to finish it. Tomás and his fridged wife and his walking backwards. And his troubles with the car. But midway through his story it seemed to click with me and I really started to enjoy it. In a way I […]

21 JAN

The Bitey Cat

I’m dipping in and out of Kij Johnson’s collection of short stories At the mouth of the river of bees. The Bitey Cat is one of the stories in the collection. It tells the story of a young girl, Sarah, whose parents are not getting on, and her first pet, a cat she calls Penny. […]

25 FEB

The Book of Apex : Vol 4

Part of the Apex Blog Tour hosted by The Little Red Reviewer The problem I always have with reviewing a collection of short stories is that it is, as described, a collection of different stories. What if you hate one and love another? And especially when it is a collection by different authors. Maybe you […]

17 NOV

The Bone Knife

You can get this one free if you’d like to try it. See Khanani’s site for links The Bone Knife is a short story, and to me it felt much more like a character study, or character background rather than a fully developed story. It is the tale of Rae, born with a club foot […]

16 SEP

Bloodstones

A collection of horror stories, edited by Amanda Pillar. Part of my RIP VIII reading. Table of contents Introduction – Seanan McGuire The Bull in winter – Dirk Flinthart Euryale – Nicole Murphy A small bad thing – Penelope Love A moveable feast – Jenny Blackford Dead inside – Pete Kempshall Smoke gets in your […]

07 JUL

A country doctor

Translated by Ian Johnston ; read Online at Franz Kafka online A doctor is needed, but he has no transport. It is winter, he has no horse to harness to his buggy. His own is dead, and no one else will risk their own animals on a journey of ten miles or more in the […]

11 NOV

Weaving Dreams

Short story published in Apex Magazine Issue 41 Eva is a witch, and a researcher into the Fae. As Weaving dreams begins she is helping Giancarlo with his research. He is an historian, interested in meeting a Fae as a primary source. They are long lived, afterall, some are still living from colonial days. This […]

06 OCT

England under the White Witch

Read online : Clarksworld Magazine issue 73 After the War came the Empress in the North. England was preoccupied with recovery. With dealing with rebellion throughout its empire. And the discontented in England were prepared for a change. But the empress brought winter and snow and the need to forever increase the empire, for in […]

17 SEP

The Martian Chronicles

First published in serial form in the 1950s The Martian Chronicles is a collection of short stories that together tell the story of humanity colonising Mars. Almost all the stories are entirely set on Mars, and deal with the effects that people have on the planet. The story opens in January 1999 with the heat […]

02 SEP

The country of the blind

Read online Long long ago, in a valley in the Andes, a group of settles were cut off from the rest of the world. They didn’t mind too much, they lived good lives and their land produced good crops. But a strange affliction caused their children to go blind. And their children’s children. And so […]

31 AUG

Rappacini’s daughter [essay]

This week’s essay for my Coursera Course got a 5. W00t :) Beatrice, Beatrice, let down your hair. Giovanni is not a pregnant woman, but his longing looks[1] into the enclosed garden next door echo the desires that resulted in Rapunzel being taken from her parents. Beatrice may live with her father but she shares […]