TOP 5 SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS OF 2024
Some of the best short story collections came out in 2024. While either paying respect to the past by curating an author's previous work or looking into the future by providing a showcase for fresh voices, these collections of short work showed innovations in the work presented and the collections themselves. Here is my top five in one of the best years for a short fiction fan.
THE STARK HOUSE ANTHOLOGY edited by Rick Ollerman and Gregory Shepard- To celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary, the publisher who has rescued a great number of authors from the classic paperback era from obscurity, released this collection by the short works of many of their authors including new work by their current writers. Many of these crime, detective, and tales have never been republished before or never published at all. Heaven for the hardboiled reader.
LAWLESS edited by Russell Davis- This collection of original western fiction, focusing on the concept of the outlaw, proves there are amy fresh trails for the form to travel down. Russell deftly combines established authors we love with new voices you will want to follow. An entertaining declaration that the genre is alive and with guns blazing.
OWNING UP by George Pelecanos- George Pelecanos serves up four novellas about people dealing with history and choices made. Following two ex-cons taking different paths, a family patriarch who never recovers from his home being invaded with a no-knock warrant, a wanna' be writer uncovering a secret connected to a historic tragedy, and a young man at a crossroads in The seventies, he finds the human core to each piece. They may be short but they all have a hell of a lot of depth.
Honolulu Noir edited by Chris McKinny- my favorite of this years Akashic Noir anthologies. This collection examines the city and Hawaii's history, cultures, society, and ploitics in a rich mosaic of dark fiction that occasionally rubs up against the supernatural. The exciting location creates seeds for noir both classic and fresh.
DISCO BALLS AND PRIVATE DICKS edited by Michael Bracken- Bracken to look at private eyes in different decades takes him to the Me Era. Stories touch on women and gay rights, the cold war, Star Wars, and, yes, disco all in a fashion better better than a leisure suit.
Comments