Short Stories are awesome!

 Want to find new authors or explore genres?  Try short story collections, especially if they are based on a theme!  Here are three story collections I finished this month that would be fun to explore.

Magic Has No Borders features South Asian folklore and magical stories told by South Asian authors.  I found some really interesting stories in this collection.  I adore finding new mythologies as well as new ways of looking at tales told a million times....and this collection filled both needs.  Some authors are well known, some don't have as much name recognition but the stories were a wide array of awesomeness.

Mystery is a genre I struggle with, as my lack of logic (I think I missed that line and stood in the one for Imagination twice...haha) means that I usually miss all the clues and feel dumb.  This collection was interesting though, as some were obvious "looking for an answer" mysteries, some were "this terrible thing happened, how do I fix it" and some were simply suspenseful jaunts around a mysterious event.  The stories are all joined by a single premise that in the story the main character sees a dead body for the first time....that's it.  So many options, so many different ways of handling that idea; and that is a reason why I love short stories and why this collection was a really fun read.

This collection of magic stories is united by a theme of having trans characters in a fantasy story.  You don't see many stories with trans characters as the focus, and especially not in a magical environment, so I was quite interested to see what this collection would look like.  It was really well done!  I especially loved the variety of stories told some angsty, some joyful, some angry and some with a bit of many things and emotions being shown.  I am a sucker for fantasy stories as anyone who knows me is aware; and I have been reading in the genre since I was 8, so finding new authors, characters and ways of looking at character development made me very happy.

Saleena