Category Archives: Short Stories

Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud by Lee Murray – 2024

Posted on February 19, 2025 by alysonebaker

“You will give these women voice and nourish them with hope … You will give them flesh and make them real” – Lee Murray, a “New Zealand-born Chinese Pākehā”, tells nine tales of women of the Chinese diaspora, women who … Continue reading →

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Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn – 2024

Posted on November 15, 2024 by alysonebaker

Pretty Ugly, an oxymoron or a qualified adjective? Fourteen short stories exploring the origins and boundaries of ‘a person’. Each story is surprising, some are entertaining, some disturbing, one devastating. They all ask whether the continuity of personality depends on … Continue reading →

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Take Two by Caroline Thonger & Vivian Thonger, illustrated by Alan Thomas – 2023

Posted on March 13, 2024 by alysonebaker

Take two is a random collection of incidents from the U.K. childhoods of two sisters, Caroline and Vivian Thonger. Vivian now lives in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Take two is like a catalogue of memories, complete with illustrations of remembered artefacts. … Continue reading →

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Gunflower by Laura Jean McKay – 2023

Posted on December 27, 2023 by alysonebaker

Gunflower is a collection of stories written by Laura Jean McKay. The collection includes stories written over two decades, there are short stories, short short stories, and flash-fiction-length stories. They are grouped into three sections: Birth, Life, Death, and they … Continue reading →

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You Are My Sunshine by Octavia Cade – 2023

Posted on June 24, 2023 by alysonebaker

You are my sunshine is an anthology set in a completely recognisable world of ecological and environmental collapse, brought about by corporate greed and general apathy. But as brutal as the descriptions are, it is a hopeful collection, even if … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review, Science Fiction, Short Stories | 1 Comment

I, Object by Stella Chrysostomou – 2023

Posted on April 24, 2023 by alysonebaker

A mechanic in one of Eliot Pattison’s Inspector Shan novels, set in Tibet, sees his job as facilitating the reincarnation of motor vehicles, patching them into their next incarnations. Stella Chrysostomou similarly gives life to jewellery objects in I, Object, … Continue reading →

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Soul Etchings by Sandra Arnold – 2019

Posted on June 22, 2019 by alysonebaker

I love short short story collections and Soul etchings is a superb example.  A collection of evocative snippets, about loss, grief, missed opportunities, women stuck in mis-matched relationships, misunderstood children, murder and over-obsessive inanimate objects. When I reviewed another short story … Continue reading →

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My Mother and the Hungarians by Frankie McMillan – 2016

Posted on January 10, 2017 by alysonebaker

For some reason I have never enjoyed the short story form (excepting Conan Doyle) but I read Ninety-nine stories of God by Joy Williams last year and now I am a big fan of the short short story form.  The … Continue reading →

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