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Miniatures
- The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Khristine Hvam, Peter Ganim, Luke Daniels, John Scalzi, Greg Cope White, Fred Berman
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
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Miniatures
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Summary
The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. Welcome to Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi.
These four stories, along with 14 other pieces, have one thing in common: They're short, sharp, and to the point - science fiction in miniature, with none of the stories longer than 2,300 words. But in that short space exist entire universes, absurd situations, and the sort of futuristic humor that propelled Scalzi to a Hugo with his novel Redshirts. Not to mention yogurt taking over the world (as it would).
Spanning the years from 1991 to 2016, this collection is a quarter century of Scalzi at his briefest and best and features four never-before-published stories exclusive to this collection: "Morning Announcements at the Lucas Interspecies School for Troubled Youth", "Your Smart Appliances Talk About You Behind Your Back", "Important Holidays on Gronghu", and "The AI Are Absolutely Positively Without a Doubt Not Here to End Humanity, Honest".
John Scalzi is the New York Times best-selling author of Old Man's War, Lock In, and Redshirts, among others. His work has won the Hugo and Locus Awards and been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell Awards. He lives in Ohio and online. He enjoys pie.
Full cast of narrators includes Oliver Wyman, Dina Pearlman, and Allyson Johnson.
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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Declan Fairey
- 20-08-24
Good things in Short Paragraphs
Very good and intelligently written short stories, which demonstrate the value of (and the humour in) brevity.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jack
- 30-01-18
Great, imaginative, funny stories
Really enjoyed this. I had already heard colapsing empire and red shirts but this was good as it showed a nice breadth of ideas.
My particular favourite was the fall of the society of the frogs and the first squid on the moon.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Bjørn Erik Pettersen
- 11-02-23
Good book.
I like Scalzi’s stories. They remind me a bit like Douglas Adams’. Funny in a quirky way.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Neil
- 03-05-22
A nice collection of short stories.
A good collection. Some old, some new. Nice backgrounds to the stories.
Well performed by all.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- ai83
- 28-07-23
Tired of AI cliches
I've grown tired of glib, stupid dialogue about how AI is thinking. Nuking this book from orbit.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Shez
- 30-11-18
More a selection of lists than short stories
If you're a Scalzi fan, as I am, then you may find this interesting simply to see how he approaches short stories and how his ideas may have evolved. But if you're just looking to listen to some good stories, then this is not for you. They are musings rather than perfected stories. Some interesting ideas, though.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 04-09-17
From Adequate to Badequate
This collection is a mixed bag, much in the same way that a bag of garbage is also a mixed bag. Not everything in there is useless, if you were to rewire the plug in the toaster it'd probably work fine, but as no one wants to go to the effort of making any of it good it'd just being heaped together and thrown out.
There were occasions where I thought something was sort of funny but on these rare occasions the story would immediately swing back and beat the joke to death. It's almost as if the author is afraid to do a subtle joke as that would give the reader too much of a chance to miss it, instead it has to begin subtle and then immediately make it perfectly clear just what the joke was, why it was funny and why hearing it another dozen times will re-enforce just how funny it was. This entire series feels like some kind of scientific experiment to grind jokes into dust and then examine the remains to see if we can discover the funny atom. We can't, joke is dead.
Narration was generally fine though.
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3 people found this helpful