The Introduction for my new short story collection Buxton and Other Stories:
One of the
definitions Merriam-Webster gives for fantastic is ‘conceived or seemingly
conceived by unrestrained fancy.’ Another is ‘so extreme as to challenge
belief.’ Since all the stories in this collection fit either of those
definitions, or at least graze them, I considered calling this collection The
Fantastics. But there's a double problem with that: First, there’s the 1960
play The Fantasticks, which could cause some confusion, and second, Merriam-Webster
also gives a third possible definition of ‘excellent, superlative’, and that
might convey more than a whiff of conceit.
Since
my first short story collection was titled 21 Tales, and there are twenty
stories in this collection, I briefly considered the title Almost 21 More
Tales. But the stories in this collection are very different from my earlier
noir stories in that first collection.
While
these stories run the gamut from science fiction to horror to mystery,
relationships are at the core of most of them—whether it’s the relationship
between a husband and wife, a couple which have just started dating, two
partners, a baseball player on his last legs and his parents, or a reporter and
the truth.
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