Review – Grady Harp

July 28, 2009


Fast Forward, Volume 2


Tasty Morsels of Literature


For those who enjoy the short story genre this little book is a treasure house. Guest editor K Scott Forman has selected sixty-three works of fiction from writers around the world and has grouped these little microstories into the categories 'play>, rewind<<, fast forward>>, stop/eject, and pause||’. The concept is that of treating these vignettes as selections from a screen as though the reader becomes a viewer with the controls at hand.

Despite the brevity of the stories they each convey an aspect of the human condition and as such bear re-reading after a story much later in the book references a similar thought: returning to the original piece that caught attention then seems to make each story blossom. For many readers some of the names of the authors will be instantly recognizable. For this reader, having read the book 'A Hatful of Cherries' by Felix Calvino suggested the quality of work the book represents - his story 'they are only dreams' is excerpted from that collection. But in addition to the simple almost naively written Calvino story there are complex tales that brush the pages with endless colors and strikes of imagination and creativity, making this collection truly a book for every reader's taste. FF>> Press (Fast Forward Press) has once again introduced a uniquely entertaining presentation of the best in brief literature, offering incentives to pursue the works of each of the writers presented here. Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)