Short Stories Book Reviews

★★★½

Erik Mackenzie’s fictional short story Stealing from Isis tells of ex-SAS Brit Richard’s adventure in wartorn Northern Iraq. He is hired to locate ancient Persian treasures that have been hidden underground for over a thousand years. His mission takes him deep into ISIS territory, using his drone ‘Hornet’ to recover the treasure and keep it safe. Richard, a self proclaimed ‘action junkie,’ is aided by French comrade Charles, and the Kurdish warriors Diyako and his daughter Jiyan. But the mission is not all it seems, and they are double-crossed.

The story gets off to an interesting start – the […]

Atoms and Other Small Pieces is a short collection of fiction by author L. N. Nino, with the general theme of small details and the transition into horrible, deeply humanistic developments.

The first story, eponymous “Atoms,” compares and contrasts typical storytelling with the emotional existence of a non-sentient protagonist – a chemical compound – with the circumstances of a human tragedy; the second, “Debris,” centers on the story of a loveless mother-child relationship; the third, “Pennies,” ascribes itself an extended letter from a self-described philosopher of modern masculine virtue and creative genius who has fallen into difficult and unfair circumstances; […]