Normal Rules Don’t Apply, by Kate Atkinson. Pub 2023

I’ve read a few Kate Atkinson novels before, and especially enjoyed Life After Life, a clever branched reality speculative fiction story, and so was expecting more of the same here in shorter versions. I was not overly disappointed, but I did find this collection to be uneven in quality.

The eleven stories each stand on their own for the most part, but there is some looping back of characters and events that does require that you read the entire book, or at least read the stories in order. There are elements of fantasy and science fiction in a few of them, and recurring characters in situations reminiscent of the branched reality of the earlier novel. In that way, some of the stories are elevated with the clever connections to previous ideas.

The best of the bunch are “The Void” (a kind of apocalypse story) and “Existential Marginalization” (a dystopic take on Toy Story). The others are mostly good, but again rely somewhat on the stories around them. I think having recently read the far superior stories of Raymond Carver made these ones seem ordinary and long winded.

Short stories are a writing style all to themselves, not just abbreviated novels, and so require a defter hand to make them great. Perhaps Atkinson is better in the long-form novel, including her murder mysteries.

Fate: little book library

1 – a murder
2 – a book about time
8 – a female author
18 – short stories