 Instead of reviewing one book this time, I'm going to talk about a small collection of new short works. I was looking on Tumblr and YouTube at this group called SFF Booktube who specialized in reviewing science fiction and fantasy books on YouTube and I saw that they had their first annual SFF Booktube Awards last year and one of their categories was short works and they had this list of pieces that had been nominated and I thought I'll go find these and read them. I usually don't read new stuff and I especially enjoy short stories and shorter works as you know if you've been watching my reviews. So I saw this as an opportunity to read some good new stuff and I did find some good new stuff. First of all there was one story on the list that I was unable to get a copy of. It's called Slow Regard of Silent Things by Pat Rothfuss, so I can't critique it. Number two on the list is an item I've talked about before. It's The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami and when I mentioned it last time I said that I did not like it and I'll say it again, I did not like this. It's an attempt at a modern fairy tale I think and I think it was just a failure all around. I didn't like the writing. It includes a great deal of artwork and graphics that go along with what little text there is and are intended to enhance the text. I didn't think it accomplished that. I thought it was, the whole thing was boring and rather uncreative. Apparently there are four editions of this. One for Japan, for the US, for the UK and Germany I think. I got this one from the UK because it has this library card pocket glued onto the front cover which I thought was very creative. Unfortunately I think it's the only creative thing about this book and the SFF booktubers voted this their number one. Both the judges and the quote unquote citizens who voted overwhelmingly voted this number one. That was junk. The third item on my list, for some reason this was on my list but when the SFF booktubers did their award show they didn't mention this one. I don't know if I put it on mistakenly or if they somehow left it out or removed it. I don't know. Anyway it's called Pammy Shaw, creator of gods and also blogger by Brea Grant. It's a cute little short story, it's written in the form of a series of blogs by a girl who has survived the zombie apocalypse somehow. She's locked in some sort of survival shelter or a basement or something. She has plenty of food and somehow the internet is still working so she continues blogging even though nobody's looking. It was a neat little read, nothing great I thought. You can buy it online, I'll include the link in the description below. Now the next two on my list are the good stuff if you ask me. We've got a piece called The Meeker and the All Seeing Eye by Matthew Kressel. This is excellent old school science fiction. This is big picture stuff. This is cosmic odyssey stuff. It's hard for me to even start to describe it. It takes place like a trillion years from now. We're talking about at a time when the universe has basically already ended. This creature called the All Seeing Eye, I can't even start to describe him, in fact I won't. It really is up to you, the reader, to read this and discover as you go along what it is and who the meeker is and to discover for yourself what's going on as you read. It's pointless for me to even describe it and since it's a short work it's going to be a short read for you. So there's not much point in me going on about what actually happens in it. And again you can buy it online and I'll include the link below. I highly recommend that you buy this. It has my highest recommendation. And finally there's this thing called Six of the Dusk by Brandon Sanderson. Again, this is great stuff. The SFF Booktubers were saying that they considered this part of a novel series and that it wouldn't be understandable for people who are not familiar with the novel series. Well I'm not at all familiar with the novel series and I'm not familiar with this author's writing. However, I had no trouble at all getting into this story. It's some of the best world building I've ever seen. Some of the best. This is one of the stories that I will use from now on when people ask what is world building? What do you mean when you say world building? I'll say here, read this. The story is about a man living in a primitive culture that exists on a series of jungle islands, an archipelago, on an ocean planet. He is a hunter. He is traveling to a very savage island that is home to all the beasts. I guess you would say. He has with him a psychic bird that sits on his shoulder and communicates him with him through imagery to warn him about dangerous things. And this is one of the really unique things about it. It communicates with him purely visually like he'll be walking down the path in the jungle and then he'll see a vision of his own body hanging from a tree over here which means don't go over by that tree because something will kill you over there. Or he'll see his own dead body floating in the creek off to the left over here which means don't go in the creek. Something's going to kill you over there. It's a really unique approach to the idea and he has another psychic bird, an eagle type thing that flies overhead and keeps him informed of where his prey is and what the big picture. And apparently it's unusual, even almost unheard of, for one of these hunters to have two psychic birds. It's a whole other world and the author does a tremendous job of bringing us into it very quickly which has to be done in a shorter work and he does an amazing job. This guy's world by the way is being disrupted by aliens or rather humans from a technological world. Perhaps Earth? I don't remember. They have a kind of Star Trek policy about non-interference with more primitive cultures and yet just their being there is disrupting the hell out of everything. Some of the best science fiction I've ever read. So these last two pieces, The Meeker and the All Seeing Eye and Six of the Dusk, I strongly recommend. I have a soft recommendation for Pammy Shaw, creator of gods and also blogger. And again, links to the ones you can buy online are in the description below and I recommend you go do that. See you next time. You can support 30 Seconds Sci-Fi and my other projects by becoming a patron. There's a link in the description below. And visit the 30 Seconds Sci-Fi Tumblr, that's my headquarters. In addition to my videos, I publish links and updates there every day.