by Neal Shusterman
Available Now
A really good short story is tough to write. You want to encompass a world and a concept in a brief space, but the word count available to you means something has to go. Will you pare down worldbuilding to focus everything to a single moment? Sacrifice characterization to paint a picture of a setting, or vice-versa? Or will you try to maintain a little bit of everything, potentially crowding the payoff of your story against the back wall? There is no one single answer, and finding the right answer for each story is one of the trickiest parts of the process.
In other words, I admire someone who can write not just one or two solid short stories, but a whole anthology's worth. And while I may not have seen eye to eye with Neal Shusterman on his novel All Better Now, I find myself enchanted by the selection of short fiction in MindWorks.
The stories Shusterman authors and co-authors in this anthology are broadly what one might call "genre fiction," running the gamut from hard sci-fi to magical realism. The majority fall closer to the latter category: normal worlds in which one thing has gone a bit skewiff. The stories cover a broad span, but are grouped by topic: covering themes like fate and destiny, death and undeath, monsters, strange buildings, and transformations. The final two inclusions hail from his Scythe stories, with which I am only familiar by word-of-mouth, but which are self-contained enough to draw in new readers.
It would be difficult to rate every single story in an anthology spanning more than 500 pages; so instead, I will highlight a few favorites.
"Smells Like Kafka": My personal favorite of the anthology, a story of a girl named Bettina Plinth and her beloved teddy bear, Kafka. While her negligent parents are away on yet another trip, her teddy comes to life as a very real, very large bear. The upshot of the story is a surprisingly wholesome one, and one that will hit home for a very specific subset of readers.
The Ralphy Sherman Stories: This trio of stories, about the strange lives of Ralphy and his sister Roxanne, remind me of a somewhat friendlier version of Junji Ito's Hikizuri family. The siblings claim that their father is a spy, their mother has been abducted by aliens, and Nessie lives in their jacuzzi... to name just a few things. These are surreal and playful, and I love the childlike view of the bizarre events that dip in and out of their lives.
The 💩 on Our Shoes: (Yes, that is the actual published title, emoji and all.) While "Smells Like Kafka" is my favorite, I would argue that this one is the best of the anthology. Set on a spacecraft carrying members of the human race to a new home, the story follows students Lowell and Maeve as they uncover devastating secrets about the soon-to-be-completed space mission. This is a fantastic demonstration of vast but balanced worldbuilding in a confined space, all without losing the drama of meaning of the story along the way.
Aside from having great stories in it, the book itself looks absolutely gorgeous. It never hurts to have something nice-looking on your shelf. And for a book like this, which is extremely re-readable, that's a bonus.
TEA PAIRING: Magical Library Butterbrew
The stories in MindWorks are all very different from each other — like a vast library in and of itself — so this creamy butterscotch blend inspired by magical libraries feels like the best fit for this broad spectrum. Use my code KARA15 at checkout for 15% off this and other teas!
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