‘Running Coyote and Fallen Star’ by Gavin Boyter is a collection of short stories created through an interesting concept. Looking for inspiration the author started to write short stories to a strict word count using three randomly generated words as prompts. ‘Running Coyote and Fallen Star’ not only contains some of these works (that have received further editing from the initial strict requirements) but other stories of a variety of length for readers to disappear into. I found all of these stories very well-written and I liked the variety of genres within the collection. Some stories address life during the pandemic, others are set in the future with a science fiction twist. There’s tales of ghosts and old friendships and without going through and describing every single one, there’s something for everyone. If you’d like a recommendation to start with, I found ‘Duet’ to be the most powerful. A great short story collection to suit any mood or available reading time.
These 48 stories take you into the interior worlds of soldiers, artists, undercover agents, explorers, daredevils, spies, and interstellar smugglers. A young pop singer and an operatic tenor duet over their balconies in lockdown London. An uptight journalist comes face to face with an ancient ancestor in a cave in the Carpathians. Mata Hari meets the love of her life aboard the Orient Express. And in the title story, two women on the run from the FBI guard a unique infant. Boyter’s pocket-sized tales encompass whole worlds, transporting you from the melting Greenland icecaps to New Orleans in the 1920s or the far depths of interstellar space. Meet Victorian ghosts, revenge-taking seamstresses, Vincent Van Gogh, and an obstreperous goat declared mayor of a small English village. Many of these tales were generated by a unique process of random ideation. Their running theme is connection, and the new hope that comes from unexpected meetings of minds.
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