Short Thoughts on Short Fiction Vol. 14: Newbies

Greetings from a somewhat ill and physically shaky Casa del Rawson, jack-offs!

It’s that time again, folks, even though I’m coming to you this week consigned to my bed from a hopefully short-term bout of digestional woe. However, the great thing about having to spend the day in bed (interspersed with the occasional rushed trips to the john) is that I’ve been able to curl up with the laptop and read through some pretty great new stories that have popped up on the web over the past week or two.

Much like the past couple of columns, I decided to riff on another theme for this week’s STonSF. And what is the theme I’ve chosen for this week, you ask?

Well, I was thinking it might be a swell idea to focus on some newbie writers. Now, don’t get me wrong, folks, I still very much consider myself a newbie. I haven’t even remotely been at this shit long enough to consider myself a seasoned pro; far from it. As a matter of fact, I’ve only been sending my stories out for just a hair under two years. True, I’ve been writing since my teens, but it took me a decade or two for my balls to drop and actually work up the courage to start throwing my muddled little pulp fiction gremlins to the wind and see what would stick.

The three writers I’m spotlighting today are also just starting to test the waters, and after you get done reading my reviews, you’ll hopefully go and check out their stories and give them a little encouragement for their efforts.

     
Old Age and Treachery by Alan Griffiths, published by Flash Fiction Offensive

Now I don’t know if I can call Griffiths a new writer, exactly. In fact, Griffiths’ first published story, “Rat Fink,” was the fourth story to appear in A Twist of Noir. But for the most part Griffiths has kept a low profile and has been slowly but surely building his skills as a writer of quality hard-boiled short stories. “Old Age and Treachery” is the story of Griffiths series character, Priest, and his partner Snowy. The two long-time partners boost a local hardman by the name of Fast Eddie, hoping to score enough loot to drop out of the game entirely. The whole problem is that old Snowy has picked up a greedy piece of young trim named Juni, and she convinces her smitten suitor to try and pull the old double-cross on Priest by ratting him out to Fast Eddie’s blood thirsty crew. As usual, Griffiths sets an excellent pace for the story, but overall the piece didn’t really grab me and probably could have used another thousand words. But I also tend to think Griffiths style is far better suited for longer fiction, where he can play and expand on his characters and scenarios. Overall not a great story, but not horrible either. But once again, I encourage you to hunt down Griffiths’ other stories to get a real taste of this up and coming stylist.

2 stars

     
I Pump Gas by Johnny Zephyr, published by Thuglit

“I Pump Gas” focuses on a half-crazed, almost hermit-like gas station owner who encounters two thugs who happen to have a small beaten up boy stashed in the backseat of their Lincoln Continental. The unnamed gas station attendant doesn’t like the scene and decides to take justice into his own hands.

Wow, I just didn’t like this story.

Typically when you start cruising through an issue of Thuglit, you almost expect one or two head-scratcher kinds of stories within its pages, and usually I find these to be fairly entertaining.

But not this one.

First off, I’m not a fan of writers using children as plot devices/victims. Not only is the device all too well worn, it just tends to make me a little sick to my stomach, especially since the motivations of the two thugs is never explained in the story. Plus, the overall pacing of the story was muddled and the ending was a tad cliché and seemed to contradict the motivations and personality of the protagonist.  It also made me feel like I’d just wasted ten minutes that I could have been reading something else. But, Mr. Zephyr, if by some chance you read this review, don’t let it discourage you from writing. Lady Detroit obviously liked something about this piece that I didn’t, so keep at it, because you can only improve.

1 star

     
The Verdict by Sara Knoll, published by Powderburn Flash

“The Verdict” is the story of a man named Martin Wall, who has just been put through a long trial over an unexplained crime, and the story largely focuses on the emotional gut reactions of Wall and the court room audience. I’ll give you the warning right here and now that this story is not crime fiction, but in all honesty, that really didn’t matter for me. I found the story to be tense, and it made me want to keep reading even though I didn’t know the nature of Wall’s crime. However, this is my biggest complaint about the story: What was the crime? Overall this was a good first effort and I hope to read more of Ms. Knoll’s work in the future.

2 stars