The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. Welcome to Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi.
These four stories, along with 14 other pieces, have one thing in common: They’re short, sharp, and to the point – science fiction in miniature, with none of the stories longer than 2,300 words. But in that short space exist entire universes, absurd situations, and the sort of futuristic humor that propelled Scalzi to a Hugo with his novel Redshirts. Not to mention yogurt taking over the world (as it would).
Spanning the years from 1991 to 2016, this collection is a quarter century of Scalzi at his briefest and best and features four never-before-published stories exclusive to this collection: “Morning Announcements at the Lucas Interspecies School for Troubled Youth”, “Your Smart Appliances Talk About You Behind Your Back”, “Important Holidays on Gronghu”, and “The AI Are Absolutely Positively Without a Doubt Not Here to End Humanity, Honest”.
John Scalzi is the New York Times best-selling author of Old Man’s War, Lock In, and Redshirts, among others. His work has won the Hugo and Locus Awards and been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell Awards. He lives in Ohio and online. He enjoys pie.
Full cast of narrators includes Oliver Wyman, Dina Pearlman, and Allyson Johnson.
Fun and necessary for any fan of Scalzi Fun and necessary for any fan of Scalzi, but there’s just not enough content to warrant the price. I realize the individual stories are supposed to be short, but there’s fewer of them than I thought there would be.
Hilarious – a near-perfect collection! John Scalzi is hilarious. So many authors try to write “humor” but the vast majority of them utterly fail at, or only accomplish being amusing as opposed to laugh-out-loud funny. I think it’s because being funny in book form requires a different strategy than oral or physical timing. You really have to be able to get inside your readers’ heads since you don’t have the feedback of a live audience to hand you clues, and it requires a different sense of timing. Language is important, as is…
mostly amusing, possibly forgettable, enjoyable short pieces This is a quickly read book, and probably one quickly forgotten, but entertaining while it lasts. Most of these short pieces are similar in theme and tone: amusing, somewhat silly takes on how humans would interact with aliens or intelligent machinery once either became commonplace. This is not the book to search for my favorite aspects of Scalzi’s novels, namely the resourcefulness and individuality of his characters and the suddenly piercing pathos their stories can evoke.Â