MINIATURES

Scalzi has said that his two writing strengths are his novels (The End of All Things, 2015, etc.) and his very short fiction; this slim offering showcases the latter.

Most of the stories concern the conjunction of the otherworldly with the everyday, practical needs of life: from getting along with aliens in the office, the supermarket, and high school; to booking the professional services of superheroes or assessing the financial impact of supervillains; to the unpleasantly intimate encounters between humans and their whiny smart appliances; to suing the Universal Union Space Fleet (the ersatz Starfleet from Scalzi’s popular novel Redshirts) for health and safety violations on behalf of the crews and junior officers who suffer “almost horribly creative injuries” on a far-too-frequent basis. Basically, his point is that you don’t have to be facing Armageddon to have an encounter with the unusual—although if the imminent destruction of nearly all of humanity is your bag, Scalzi does include one story on the subject, plus another about our subjugation by intelligent yogurt (yes, really). This might not quite sate readers’ hunger for Scalzi as they await his next novel, but it’s a reasonably tasty snack.

Somewhat repetitive in theme, often verging on the silly, but on the whole, quite amusing.