Tag Archives: Short Stories

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A Thousand Distant Radios by Woody Skinner – A Book Review


If you haven’t heard of Woody Skinner, I suggest you familiarize yourself with him. He’s a Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award winner whose work has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Booth, The Carolina Quarterly, Mid-American Review, and more.

I recently had the pleasure of making Skinner’s acquaintance. After hearing his backstory and learning about his writing journey and successes, I felt inspired to read his short story collection called A Thousand Distant Radios.

The collection includes stories about an ill-fated marlin dumped into an extravagant couple’s backyard pool, a charismatic knife salesman traveling through a fanatical North American landscape, a young man in rural Arkansas who nestles into a satellite dish, and a grandfather’s body surrounded by oddments of a legendary Americana. Each story is singularly imaginative, portraying characters who are both unique and familiar, while focusing upon the disparate existences within “America.”

Put simply: I loved it.

I loved it because the book is extremely well written. Skinner obviously has a fantastic grasp of structure, word choice, pacing, and character. However, many “literary” authors tout these same skills. I loved it for an entirely different reason.

What sets Skinner apart from his literary peers is the sheer quirkiness of his stories. They zig every single time you think they are going to zag. Dare I say it, they’re frankly a little weird, which is in all honestly very high praise. I’ll heap one more compliment upon the previous: A Thousand Distant Radios comes within a a hair’s breath of being genre writing.

Let me name a few other literary authors who flirt dangerously with genre: Annie Proulx, Michael Chabon, Paul Auster, Tobias Wolff, and Raymond Carver. Oh, by the way, these are also some of my favorite writers. As I read A Thousand Distant Radios, I couldn’t help but feel that Skinner fits perfectly into this group of luminaries.

Woody Skinner is a relatively young writer with many, many years of excellence ahead of him. I cannot wait to read more of his work. Purchase your copy of A Thousand Distant Radios at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

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Announcing My Latest Short Story Collection: Happy, Sad, Funny, Mad

I’m so excited to announce that my latest short story collection, Happy, Sad, Funny, Mad, is now available at Amazon.com!

In this collection, you’ll find forty very short stories of various genres that can be generally categorized as happy, sad, funny or … well, you get it. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, and some will flat-out scare the puddin’ out of you. I guarantee each and every one of them will entertain you, though.

Get your copy today by clicking HERE. Thank you!

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A Sketch of Jason Willingham from Dr. Nekros: Phantasms and Chicanery

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This is Jason Willingham, a self-made millionaire and innovator in the field of digital technology.  He’s also the second husband of Zetta Southerland, Dr. Nekros’ ex-wife.  He and Zetta married eleven years ago when he didn’t have a penny to his name.

Ever the understanding husband, Jason is happy to help his wife try to save Dr. Nekros from impending disaster with the demon Xaphan. 

Jason is featured in the latest Dr. Nekros serial entitled Dr. Nekros: Phantasms and Chicanery.

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Stuck Inside On This Snowy Day? Let Me Help With That!

Stuck inside on this snowy day?  Let me help with that!  I would love it if you downloaded my e-book series entitled Dr. Nekros.  Each installment is only ninety-nine cents.  That’s almost five hundred pages of writing for less than three dollars!  It’s available on both the Nook and the Kindle–remember, these are free apps on your phone.  Trust me, at first you’ll love to hate the good doctor, but in the end, you’ll hate to love him.

Find all three books at this link: https://scottwilliamfoley.com/

Don’t have time for an entire book?  No worries–I understand.  I also have many, many short stories available for your Nook and Kindle as well.  Though I write in a variety of genres, they all focus on that which we all have in common–our humanity.  Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, some will make you think, and others will make you hide under the covers.  I promise you, though, each will entertain.  They are also only ninety-nine cents each.

Click the following link to find them all: https://scottwilliamfoley.com/e-book-store/

As always, thank you for your readership.

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Star Wars: From a Certain Point Of View – A Book Review

This collection of short stories will satisfy every Star Wars fan alive.  The premise is genius.  It takes small, seemingly unimportant moments from A New Hope and zeroes in on them.  It provides names and backstories, tragedies and victories, motivations and inclinations.  It satisfyingly adds to a universe already well developed.

One of these stories in particular proved among my favorites.  Do you remember the guy standing lookout in the crow’s nest of a pole?  You saw him as the X-Wings took off to intercept the Death Star?  His story is written by Will Wheaton, entitled “Laina,” and it is absolutely heartbreaking.  There is another called “Time of Death” which features Obi-Wan Kenobi’s final moments and thoughts as he faced certain death at the hands of his former apprentice.  Speaking of such, Claudia Gray wrote “Master and Apprentice” which explores Qui-Gon Jinn’s spirit visiting Obi-Wan on Tatooine.  Still another is called “There Is Another,” and it’s about Yoda living on Dagobah and wishing he could train one last Jedi–someone he believes has great potential.

Of course, as you can see, not all stories are directly related to a moment in A New Hope.  Such as with the Yoda story, some of the stories check in on characters technically not introduced in the original 1977 classic.  Boba Fett, for example, offers a first-person account during a bounty hunt.  We have a story starring Lando trying to swindle someone.  We have another with Doctor Aphra, a relatively new character, in the lead.  Yet another stars the Emperor himself.

However, these are all pretty big names in the Star Wars mythology.  Most of the short stories actually utilize characters that are essentially unknown.  Remember the red R2 unit that Luke and Uncle Owen almost bought?  He’s got a story.  Do you recall the Tusken Raiders who knocked out Luke?  Yep, they have a story, too.  That bartender who told Luke to get the droids out of his tavern?  You guessed it.  Even one of those little mouse droids in the Death Star has a story.

Are all forty of these short stories great?  Not in my opinion, no.  However, those that didn’t speak to me personally may very well be your favorite.  I will say this, though, the vast majority of them were exceptional.  The writers’ ability to take seemingly irrelevant characters and develop them into engaging, charismatic figures proved uncanny.

I highly recommend this book for any Star Wars fan.

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 (Did you enjoy this review?  Check out Scott William Foley’s short stories HERE!)

 

 

 

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Stories Of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang – A Book Review

As you know, I loved the film Arrival.  As is my habit after watching a great movie based on a book, I immediately acquired the source material.  It turns out that Stories Of Your Life and Others is actually a short story collection and “Story Of Your Life” is specifically the installment that served as Arrival’s source.  However, there are seven other shorts in this collection by Ted Chiang, and they are all imaginative and thought-provoking.

Chiang trained as a computer scientist, and it shows in his writing.  He is very precise, very analytical, and very scientific.  Yet he also has a great sense of character, pacing, and detail.  I especially appreciate that he seems to know the appropriate time to really delve deeply into scientific jargon, but he also knows the right time to pull back and simply let the story flow.

I would not say that all of his stories are purely science fiction, by the way.  “Tower Of Babylon,” for example, explains the science behind building a structure reaching to the heavens, but I would say it is more commentary about the human spirit than anything.  “Hell Is the Absence Of God,” a story about the physical, spiritual, and emotional consequences following sporadic visits by actual angels, is also far more about what it means to be human than anything else.

In fact, at their root, most of Chiang’s stories in this collection are investigating the plight of the human condition.  He tackles love, greed, beauty, sin, justice, obsession, honesty, and even eternal life, but he does so in extremely smart, original, and imaginative ways hidden within the genres of science fiction, steampunk, and fantasy.

If you enjoy innovative, thought-provoking stories, I highly recommend this collection.  They are all fairly complex reads, but well worth the effort.  You will like some more than others, but each is to be appreciated in its own way.

(Did you enjoy this review?  Check out Scott William Foley’s short stories HERE!)

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A Nice Review For The Imagination’s Provocation: Volume II

I want to take a moment and thank Joy Tashlik for offering some kind words about my short story collection entitled The Imagination’s Provocation: Volume II.

She wrote, “This collection of short stories reads like a series of Twilight Zone episodes, in the most excellent way. The narratives start off plausibly enough, in an old man’s house, a husband bringing his wife to visit his hometown, a burned out intellectual returning home in shame, a bed and breakfast, even the streets of a college campus, but they take the most delicious twisted turns. The book is appropriately titled. The stories within are wonderfully written and spring to life as you read. Each story is self-contained and fairly short in length. Most even lend themselves to great read-alouds. I would recommend this book for anyone who loves a good tale as well as the English teacher looking to inspire their students. Scott William Foley also has some other amazing books. I would recommend his works highly.”

Even though this particular book has been out for nearly ten years, it’s exciting to know it’s still entertaining readers.

Visit Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com if you’d like a copy.

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The Imagination’s Provocation: Volume II In Canada!

I love it when people send me pictures of themselves reading my books.  This photograph of The Imagination’s Provocation: Volume II is sent in by Jacob Padin while vacationing in Canada.  Thanks, Jacob, and I hope you enjoyed the short story collection!

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Halloween Is the Perfect Time To Read The Dr. Nekros Series

I can’t think of a better time to read all eighteen episodes of the Dr. Nekros series.  It’s got humor, drama, action, adventure, and best of all, I like to think it can be downright creepy.  Follow the address to find links to the entire saga.

https://scottwilliamfoley.com/dr-nekros-occult-aficionado-e-series/

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20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill – A Book Review

I’ve read quite a bit by Joe Hill, and I have to say that 20th Century Ghosts is his best work.  The stories in this collection are nearly perfect.  Though each belongs to “genre,” they are so original and innovative that they demand their own definition.  Some are horrifying, some are thought-provoking, some are downright romantic, but each cuts to the core of the main character and, though briefly, provides a potent insight into the protagonist that many authors fail to achieve throughout an entire novel.

I won’t say that Hill is America’s greatest author, because he isn’t, and I think he would agree with that.  But in this collection the man did everything he does best without error.  Even if you’re not a fan of “genre,” I highly recommend this book.  For aspiring writers who need to see short stories done correctly or for literature fans who need a good thrill, 20th Century Ghosts is a rewarding experience.