Miracle of Deck 34 and Other Yuletide Tales (Olsen/Ashby)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
Last year and this year, I participated in a Santa Book Exchange, where someone buys a copy of my book, and I buy a copy of someone else's book. It's all done mostly randomly. Last year, I included my "In A Flash 2020" in the fantasy category, so this year, I picked science fiction, since the book is roughly half of each.
The book I had to buy was Miracle of Deck 34 and Other Yuletide Tales, which worked out well for my December Christmas reading. It doesn't appear to be on Good Reads, so I may have to add it. However, I don't want to be the first one to rate it.
There are 24 stories (which, I admit, I didn't notice at first because I didn't read the blurb). This means that I could've read it like an advent calendar, except that I didn't get it until the second week of December.
(Side note: I did tweet out an Advent Calendar of my own because I have 24 published stories that I own the rights to, plus my first story, which was a work for hire.)
The book started well enough, but little things wore on me after a while. The writing isn't quite there. You could watch an episode of Star Trek or The Love Boat or any cop show to know how to talk to a captain. And some of the stories aren't really stories. Something is going to happen, and then it happens. And then the story just stops. In several instances, the ending is given away in the title and once we get to that reveal, it's done.
Speaking of titles, most are puns or take-offs on Christmas songs, lyrics or movies. Note the "Deck 34" of the title referencing Miracle of 34th Street. Santa appears in a few of the stories.
The pair started with the titles and wrote the stories, so some are most "prompt-ish" than others. I can recognize this because some of my prompt stories suffer from it. There have been times that by the time I'm done with the setup, the prompt that spurred the story is out of place and needs to be removed. One story spent a lot of time explaining how to make a fire in the rain and when it was done, oh, look, a shelter was built at the same time.
And, I'll confess here in fairness, I've been told by an editor that some of my stories were good but they just stopped. (I even noticed that when I read one in particular in front of an audience. My voice was high like I was about to read another sentence, but there was no more to read.
The book was enjoyable, but I wish it had had another round of editing to punch it up a little.
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