Second Revolution: Another Year of Flash Fiction

by Jamie Lackey

Welcome to another year of flash fiction, complete stories told in under one thousand words. Within these pages, you'll find a menacing unicorn, a new take on guided meditation, a huntress living to slay a single foe, a ghost trying to protect her family from her murderer, angels getting together for pie and coffee, and much more.

Second Revolution features stunning cover by Lukáš Zídka and contains twenty-eight flash fiction pieces. Open up to a story about love and death, friendship and isolation, or princesses and dragons.

Welcome to Second Revolution.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

127 pages, Paperback

Published December 14, 2020

About the author

Jamie Lackey lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their cat. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford in 2006 with a degree in Creative Writing. She studied under James Gunn at the Center for the Study of Science Fiction's Writer's Workshop in 2010 and has taken various workshops with Cat Rambo. She primarily writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror short stories.

She has over 200 short fiction credits, and has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and the Stoker Award-winning After Death.... Her fiction has appeared on the Best Horror of the Year Honorable Mention and Tangent Online Recommended Reading Lists, and she's a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Her flash fiction collection, One Revolution, and her zombie novella, Moving Forward: A Novella of Life After Zombies, are available on Amazon.com. Her debut novel, Left Hand Gods, is available from Hadley Rille Books. She also has two short story collections available from Air and Nothingness Press.

She read submissions for the Hugo-winning Clarkesworld Magazine for five years and was an assistant editor for the Hugo-winning Electric Velocipede from 2012-2013. She served as editor for Triangulation: Lost Voices in 2015 and Triangulation: Beneath the Surface in 2016.

She enjoys reading, writing, tabletop role playing games, video games, baking, and hiking. Learn more about her at her website, www.jamielackey.com

Reviews

[Nikki "The Crazie Betty" V. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, there were quite a few spelling and grammar errors which did detract some from the stories. This collection includes many genres so there’s something for everyone in this. Unfortunately, although they are good, they weren’t quite good enough for them to stick in my mind after I was done reading them. But I did ultimately enjoy most of the collection.

ARC via Netgalley

[Sherron Wahrheit · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of pop fiction, mostly in the genre of fantasy and science fiction. I especially enjoyed that almost all of the stories are a response to individual challenges put to the author. One person asks her to write a story about a unicorn. Another asks her to create a misogynistic male lead who is likeable. Another says tell me a story in the style of Stephen King.

Flash fiction is new to me, and I wondered if it’s a new internet-era thing like flash crowds, pop up restaurants, and Kickstarter funding. Looking online, I found that it is neither new nor limited in practice, having many well-know literary folks take to it. It’s just simply a short story with fewer than 1k words. Some critics suggest that additionally, it has the ability to hint at or imply a larger story.

I really admire her creative ideas that seem endless and her storytelling that seems to flow effortlessly. Each piece does tells a complete story, although some have more clarity of purpose than others. Many of the stories did hint at a bigger story, which left me wanting more. Similarly others told a full story and yet implied a larger context, which also left me wanting more. My favorites were those that left a satisfying appreciation for the ideas conveyed with an economy of words. Most felt strongly moral driven. Yes, I typically agree with her ethics, but overall the message seemed more overt and less subtle for my taste. (Minus a star and a smidge for stories that seemed slapped together and unpolished.)

But I’m sorry to say that there were lots and lots of typos, some missing words, wrong words, and even one that’s made up, plus loads of grammar mistakes, even discounting common punctuation problems, like commas, which I typically ignore. It’s easy to glide right past most of the mistakes, but if you consciously stop to look for errors, you can find even more. It leaves me with the impression the author might be a free spirit unbridled by silly rules, which I could admire and is fine by me; but if this is true, she needs a friend with a critical eye to step forward and edit. (Minus one half star.)

My favorite typo was the “hot dots” being sold to the rubes as refreshments in the park. Since I’m both a rube and a nube, of course I would want some too, thinking they are just extra tiny sliders. But, as you’d expect, they turn out to be just plain ol’ hot dogs.

The “hot dots” reminds me of an incident that is now family lore. Back when my sister was in high school she worked in a burger joint that’s now out of business. This was back in the no-tech ‘70s, and their menu was made out of a plastic backlit board that hung on the wall, and it had plastic push-in letters. (Very fancy, and clearly a step way above slide-in letters on a track.) Somehow part of the H in “hamburger” broke off and the management just left it broken, thinking, well you know, people will figure it out, of course. But my sister came home laughing and telling us how everyone was ordering I AMBURGERs. (Of course, I’d probably be one of those ordering one too.)

Having read all of these stories, I was still curious about the title Second Revolution. The Afterword explains that this is a follow up to One Revolution, a volume of flash fiction from her “first trip around the sun.” She hopes to write a third volume, which I expect will be more great fun for her and all readers alike.

Thank you NetGalley. This was an enjoyable peek in return for my feedback.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read and enjoyed the author’s Metal Box short story collection before, so I downloaded this one off of Netgalley too, despite having mixed thoughts about flash fiction. I mean, in theory I like it, despite my rambling and often quite long reviews, I’m actually a huge fan of succinctness and conciseness. But in practice, haven’t read all that much flash fiction I really liked.
This one was really good, though. The author has the imagination, originality, genre flexibility, talent and style to do this right. The stories might get ever so slightly too peppy and upbeat for me at times, but in the end they are just too charming, the charm wins over every time.
Conceptually, this is a very interesting collection. I’m aware of public funded publishing, there’s Unbound Press that puts out consistently good work, but that works by people reading existing books and paying to get the ones they like published. This is a new concept, the stories appear to be bought and paid for by fans who provide the author prompts to go off of. A very modern sort of set up, but it seems to work. Since this is a second revolution. And, frankly, I’d definitely read the first one too. I wouldn’t pay for it (Netgalley and the free library aremore my speed and I support authors by reviewing their work), but it’s nice that people do go the distance to bankroll their favorite writers in this way. Used to be just buying a book (whatever book an author chose to write) was enough, but times change. People seem to crave an increasingly personal connection thanks entirely to internet, which in so many ways has made the world very small, intimate and informal. To think…authors used to be people you’d meet at a book signing and maybe get a chance to exchange a few words with or maybe someone you wrote a letter to and probably never heard back from, now everyone’s a quick electronic message away. Everyone is aggressively interactive. I mean, I’ve just received an exuberant (typos and all) friend request on GR from some unknown author whose book I wrote a very underwhelming review for. Why. Don’t you miss the mystery, the distance?
Also, why am I the first person reviewing this book? Shouldn't it be one of the many people who paid to bring it to life? Whose names and ideas are featured in the book?
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. We’re here about a book and the book is lots of fun. And not just to people who sponsored and prompted these stories. A quick entertaining read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Second Revolution is another collection of crowdfunded flash fiction by Jamie Lackey. Released 14th Dec 2020, it's 128 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately; it makes it so easy to find information with the search function.

This is the second collection of ultra short fiction (1000 words or fewer) written inspired by prompts sent in by readers/backers. The prompts are an impressively varied lot and the author's produced vignettes and very short stories also run the gamut from light horror to fairy tales, and many points between.

One reason I prefer collections and anthologies is that short fiction is really challenging. It's spare and the author doesn't have a wealth of wordage to develop characters or plotting. Well written short fiction is a delight. I also love collections because if one story doesn't really grab me, there's another story just a few pages away.

There are 28 stories here by my count and they're all well written and entertaining. Some of them are sublime. I intend to acquire some of the author's longer fiction to compare.

Four stars. It's a solid collection.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Lael Braday · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of stories veered from a little girl finding out that unicorns can be evil murderers to a young husband learning that his mother-in-law is a goddess. Some were barely holding together as a story, and others just completely unraveled, such as the Guided Meditation, which was maddening to read. All in all, the writing style is generally interesting, and the good stories are really good. I was fortunate to receive a digital copy from the publisher Jamie Lackey through NetGalley.

[Meadow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book through NetGalley.

There were too many grammer and spelling errors for me to give it 4 stars. Plus, many stories were filler and did not capture my interest, but overall an easy read to get through.

[Laine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jamie Lackey has an incredible knack for character development and world-building - all in just a few well-placed words, phrases, and sentences. I think it takes true talent to create emotional and meaningful stories in the flash-fiction format, and Jamie makes it look effortless.