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Catching Lightning: 28 Fantasy and Science Fiction Short Stories
Dragons, dark wizards, mythology, space exploration, body modification addiction, and a solar system devouring planet—this collection has a bit of everything for fantasy and science fiction readers. Whether you are looking for a brief escape from reality or a deep delve into high fantasy, you are sure to find a story you love.
303 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 27, 2021
About the author
Curtis A. Deeter
19 books8 followersCurtis A. Deeter is an author of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. When he is not writing, he can be found spending time with his wife and son, listening to music, or enjoying a pint at the local brewery.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 29, 2026
I picked this collection of short stories up on a whim when at a local bookstore in Michigan- I saw it on a shelf of local authors and thought, why not? Well, I can say I definitely enjoyed it more than I expected. The entire collection has a framing story, where the narrator of the first story catches lightning and that gives him this amazing burst of inspiration. He wrote down hundreds of stories, and these are some of them.
While some of them I didn’t really understand or get (unfortunately, some I found confusing because of the way it was told or too short to make its point), the majority were enjoyable. The prose is simple, but works well. There were a few typos here and there, but given this is a self-published book I was impressed with the overall quality.
This collection has everything from dragon-based technology that replaced regular electronics, to horror-adjacent stories about small Midwestern towns, to brief retellings of different folklore (Hawaiian and Native American), to a new person taking up the mantle of Death, to the planet Saturn consuming the solar system. The ideas were generally SO creative, and the tone of each story varied wildly. I enjoyed the drier sense of humor and the many references made in some of the stories (I caught potentially a Joe Abercrombie reference, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dragonlance, and more).
If you want a relatively short read with some interesting stories, I’d recommend picking this up somewhere. I’d love to read some of this author’s longer works! I liked the longer stories more overall, and I’d love to see some of this creativity fleshed out into a novella or novel.
While some of them I didn’t really understand or get (unfortunately, some I found confusing because of the way it was told or too short to make its point), the majority were enjoyable. The prose is simple, but works well. There were a few typos here and there, but given this is a self-published book I was impressed with the overall quality.
This collection has everything from dragon-based technology that replaced regular electronics, to horror-adjacent stories about small Midwestern towns, to brief retellings of different folklore (Hawaiian and Native American), to a new person taking up the mantle of Death, to the planet Saturn consuming the solar system. The ideas were generally SO creative, and the tone of each story varied wildly. I enjoyed the drier sense of humor and the many references made in some of the stories (I caught potentially a Joe Abercrombie reference, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dragonlance, and more).
If you want a relatively short read with some interesting stories, I’d recommend picking this up somewhere. I’d love to read some of this author’s longer works! I liked the longer stories more overall, and I’d love to see some of this creativity fleshed out into a novella or novel.
Displaying 1 of 1 review