Rebirth: Havok Season 1

What is flash fiction?  Short stories--very short stories.  Havok Magazine provided a platform for flash fiction, mostly in the sci-fi, fantasy, and related genres.  In case you missed it, they have collected 48 of those stories in Rebirth: Havok Season 1.

The authors of the stories range from seasoned writers who have published multiple, award-winning novels to writers whose publishing history might only consist of posting a story on a web site (so far!).  The quality of the stories, as a result, has a range that you might expect, but I bet you would be hard pressed to pick out the novices from the pros.  In other words, just because some of the stories are written by no-name unpublished or little published authors doesn't mean they are poorly written or unreadable.  While I enjoyed some stories more than others, they are all quality work.

Depending on your tastes, some of the stories will be more memorable than others.  I'm not much into magic-infused fantasy stories, and a fair number here fit that mold.  Several of the stories piqued my interest enough to check what else the author has written, and many of them left me wishing there were more to the story.

I suppose that is the point of flash fiction--give the reader a taste, and leave him longing for more.  I was repeatedly impressed by the authors' ability to create a world, characters, and story elements in just a couple of pages.  I won't name favorites--there are too many and it would be unfair to leave several out.  Not every story here is a five star story, but in this case the whole is greater than the parts.  Forty-eight different authors created forty-eight different, unrelated worlds, loosely united under the theme of rebirth.  The final result left me wanting to visit quite a few of those worlds again.