Reviews

The Tyranny of Sand and Other Tiny Stories by Jesse Stanchak

mistersplog's review against another edition

inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

4.5

misslupescu's review

medium-paced

4.0

katymul's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I don't usually love short story collections, but I have always admired Drabble Collections from the world of fanfiction. I always thought that that format could only work with established intellectual properties, so that the reader could bring a wealth of existing knowledge and understanding to the 280-character max moment of time. I am delighted to be proven wrong.

While many of the tiny stories do make use of existing mythology and even reference popular stories, the originals suffer nothing from their brevity. In fact, that is used for devastating effect over and over again.

I kept having to put the book down to really think about one of the tiny stories for some time before I could come back for more devastation or hilarity or mystery or just to purge my desire to drop everything and write a full novel based on the prompt.

fruitbatwoman's review

5.0

I've followed @Microflashfic on Twitter for years and enjoy the daily story snippets immensely! This book collects a bunch of these very short stories, organized loosely by topic, each a small world on its own. Some are standalone stories with a beginning, a middle, and an ending, others are snippets that open us to different views and thoughts, but all are entertaining, sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes sad, and sometimes heartbreaking. In the foreword, Jesse Stanchak explains how the idea for these tiny stories came to be, which was very interesting and heartfelt for me.

A completely different take on short fiction, and definitely an interesting read!

autumpeacock's review

3.0

My favorite ones were the dialogue ones. This was good! There were some really funny puns in here. It was generally enjoyable but some I didn’t really care for.

seerdeer's review

5.0

I'll admit I've followed this blog and those like it for a long time now, so going into it all I knew I was going to love the book. There's something wonderful about the ability to have short stories that you can think up and dream up on your own. I know for a fact I'll be coming back and rereading this often, which is generally the highest praise I can give. So many of these stories hit me in just the right way, and the nicer thing is that over time I'm sure other stories will hit me just as hard while others wane over time. That's what makes the short stories good, dip your hands into them and see how it feels, no rush or commitment needed. Let your imagination run wild. I'm glad I can have a physical version of some of the stories for many years to come.

ambermarshall's review

4.0

I've been following this account on Twitter and there are plenty of gems. Many of these could be story-starters for writing exercises. I definitely have my favorites. Lots of imagination in here.

techxplorer's review

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0