2025 is well under way already, and it's perhaps a bit late to start looking back at the previous year and how I fared. But, well... it's been a stressful January, and it's only really now that I've had both the time and energy to reflect on 2024. The obvious place to start is probably … Continue reading 2024 – My Year in Writing and Reading
Category: Reading
Short Story Recommendations – 2019.07.10
Once again, the short story recommendations are long over do. Yadda, yadda, life's been busy. I won't make excuses. Here's today's list which is, for once, not dominated by Daily Science Fiction. Let's Pretend by Mary Soon Lee (Daily Science Fiction): This proved to be a fairly original take on the alien invasion trope. The … Continue reading Short Story Recommendations – 2019.07.10
2019.06.01 – Story Recommendations
I can't believe how far behind I am with my story recommendations. It's been more than a month since I posted the last batch, and the ones served today have been sitting in my inbox for far too long. Unfortunately, this also means I've only had time to read Daily Science Fiction short stories lately … Continue reading 2019.06.01 – Story Recommendations
Short Story Recommendations – 2019.01.07
All right. It's 2019 and the year's first short story recommendations are long overdue. I'm still catching on the Daily Science Fiction backlog in my inbox, which is definitely showing. But that doesn't make today's recommendation any less deserving. These Fine Vistas by Sandra McDonald (DSF): The story was mostly just okay. Solid sentence level … Continue reading Short Story Recommendations – 2019.01.07
Short Story Recommendations 2018.11.04
The weekly short story recommendations are long overdue (more than a week), so here they are even though I don't have as many stories to recommend as I would like. This is despite having read quite a fair deal of short stories the last couple of weeks and from a wider variety of magazines than … Continue reading Short Story Recommendations 2018.11.04
Short Story Recommendations: 2018.10.05
Once again, a week that is dominated by stories from Daily Science Fiction; I'm still catching up on the backlog of stories I have in my inbox from them since I went on vacation. To the Editor: Monsters belong in schools by Zella Christensen (DSF): A funny piece that plays of familiar fantasy tropes and … Continue reading Short Story Recommendations: 2018.10.05
Short Story Recommendations – 2018.09.24
The App by Dustin J Davis (DSF): The sentence level writing is okay, the characterization pretty good considering the limited work count, but it's the treatment of theme that really pulls this story up above average. The story highlights what's it like to live in the probably not too distant future where highly realistic video-editing … Continue reading Short Story Recommendations – 2018.09.24
A Year of Critical Reading – What I’ve Learned so Far
Psychologist and expert in experts Dr. Anders Eriksson explains in his book, Peak (one of the few self-help books actually worth reading, if you ask me), that the single best indicator of how good a chess player is going to be isn't how many hours of chess they've played but how many hours they've spent … Continue reading A Year of Critical Reading – What I’ve Learned so Far
Short Story Recommendations – 2018.08.03
Unfortunately, I only have two story recommendations for you today. This is partly due to me having read mostly novels and stuff from my writing group the last week or so, and partly because I've been unlucky and the stories I did chose to read (many of them being okay but not exactly great). Luckily, … Continue reading Short Story Recommendations – 2018.08.03
Short Story Recommendations – 2018.07.09
It's time for my second round of short story recommendations. This last week or so it seems I've been reading a lot of Daily Science Fiction (DSF), or at least that's where I've found the best stories. This isn't really a surprise though as DSF is one of my absolute favorite short story magazines. They … Continue reading Short Story Recommendations – 2018.07.09
Toby Backman 