Sudden Fiction, by Robert Shapard and James Thomas (eds)
Deep and marvelous literature without stressing your attention-span
(Review posted 13 Jun 1996 12:12:12)

(Copied from an old review originally posted elsewhere.)

Top Ten reasons to get Shapard and Thomas's "Sudden Fiction":

• 10. It gathers together in one place seventy wonderful stories that would otherwise be hard to find, since many outlets simply don't do short-shorts.
• 9. You may come to realize that it's possible to do almost everything that a fiction author might want to do in just two or three pages, and you may no longer spend so much time reading novels, and therefore have more time to spend staying competitive in the global economy.
• 8. You can amuse yourself trying to figure out how they decided what order to put the stories in.
• 7. You can actually read a story all the way through in between demands from your five-year-old for another game, another book, another ride.
• 6. It costs less than twenty cents a story.
• 5. The four Afterwords, in which the authors of the stories ruminate about the short-short genre, and what it should really be called.
• 4. If you haven't got "Sudden Fiction International" yet, getting this book might inspire you to buy that one.
• 3. The warm human realism of Mary Robison's "Yours", Elizabeth Tallent's "No One's a Mystery", and so on.
• 2. The haunting gemlike surrealism of Barthelme's "The King of Jazz", Jane Martin's "Twirler", and so on.

And the Number One reason to get Shapard and Thomases "Sudden Fiction":

• 1. Even if you're the sort of person who gets impatient with multi-screen Web pages, and who likes book reviews that are in the form of Ten Best Reasons lists, these stories will give you deep and marvelous literature without stressing your attention-span.

OK, so it's not a very funny list. Do I look like David Letterman?

%E Robert Shapard
%E James Thomas
%B Sudden Fiction
%I Gibbs M. Smith, Inc. / A Peregrine Smith Book
%C Salt Lake City
%D 1986
%G ISBN 0-87905-265-1
%P 264 pp.
%O trade paperback, US$12.95
%T The King of Jazz
%A Donald Barthelme
%T Twirler
%A Jane Martin
%T Yours
%A Mary Robison
%T No One's a Mystery
%A Elizabeth Tallent
%O etc etc etc