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A review by ablotial
Sorry Please Thank You by Charles Yu
3.0
I've been enjoying short story collections recently, and I discovered this one because it got decent reviews in the Seasonal Reading Challenge group that I participate in. It is nominally a science fiction collection, and is split into four sections: Sorry, Please, Thank You, and an all of the above section that contains a story with the same title as the overall collection. Aside from the final story, I didn't really feel that the stories fit into these themes at all. For pretty much all the stories, I either really loved them, or I really ... didn't. There was no in-between.
Here are my thoughts for each story written as I was reading (modified from my status messages):
1. Standard Loneliness Package: Very cool first story about a company whose employees feel other people's emotions for them. I think he could have done more with the relationship between the two employees.
2. First Person Shooter: loved this idea, funny and well executed. Not your normal zombie story.
3. Troubleshooting: meh, didn't really get it.
4. Hero Absorbs Major Damage: wonderful! I have wanted to write something like this myself, fun to imagine the characters' thoughts.
5. Human for Beginners: uhhh what? this was just awkward and also doesn't fit the tone or genre of the other stories...
6. Inventory: also really strange, didn't like it as a whole but did have a few good quotes that I have thought myself at times about what reality really means.
7. Open: very cool concept! I wonder about the poem mentioned that inspired the door to show up.
8. Note to Self: Multiverse! I really like what the author tried to do here, bit I don't think it ended up working well.
9. Yeoman: loved this, maybe my favorite! perfect ending, even better than the one I was imagining.
10. Designer Emotion 67: meh. I don't like this style of story I guess.
11. The Book of Categories: It's a crowd-sourced Ontology! I love the idea, but this got too informal and weird for my tastes. And why didn't Chang clarify any of the questions others asked about him? I guess because he didn't see them because the book is too big.
12. Adult Contemporary: This one was really well done - kind of like a Truman Show type story except very different.
13. Sorry Please Thank You: Meh. Suicide note not really my cup of tea, and not really sci-fi ish...
Here are my thoughts for each story written as I was reading (modified from my status messages):
1. Standard Loneliness Package: Very cool first story about a company whose employees feel other people's emotions for them. I think he could have done more with the relationship between the two employees.
2. First Person Shooter: loved this idea, funny and well executed. Not your normal zombie story.
3. Troubleshooting: meh, didn't really get it.
4. Hero Absorbs Major Damage: wonderful! I have wanted to write something like this myself, fun to imagine the characters' thoughts.
5. Human for Beginners: uhhh what? this was just awkward and also doesn't fit the tone or genre of the other stories...
6. Inventory: also really strange, didn't like it as a whole but did have a few good quotes that I have thought myself at times about what reality really means.
7. Open: very cool concept! I wonder about the poem mentioned that inspired the door to show up.
8. Note to Self: Multiverse! I really like what the author tried to do here, bit I don't think it ended up working well.
9. Yeoman: loved this, maybe my favorite! perfect ending, even better than the one I was imagining.
10. Designer Emotion 67: meh. I don't like this style of story I guess.
11. The Book of Categories: It's a crowd-sourced Ontology! I love the idea, but this got too informal and weird for my tastes. And why didn't Chang clarify any of the questions others asked about him? I guess because he didn't see them because the book is too big.
12. Adult Contemporary: This one was really well done - kind of like a Truman Show type story except very different.
13. Sorry Please Thank You: Meh. Suicide note not really my cup of tea, and not really sci-fi ish...