Well folks it’s Day #28 of my Flash Clash reading challenge, and I’m drawing ever closer to the end. There’s not too many flash fiction pieces left for me to work my way through now, but I’m happy to say that the standard has remained just as high as it was at the start i.e. none of the remaining authors are throwing any of their tatty stories in at the end, just for filler.
Alex Burrett thrilled me again today with The Best Bit of Advice, a story that has quickly become one of my favourites of the writer so far. The story centres around a couple on the morning after a one-night stand. During the course of the evening the woman had asked the man – the narrator of the story – what was the best piece of advice he ever received. His response? He couldn’t remember. In reality he could and the advice – offered by a family friend – was ‘always carry a handaxe’. Sounds a bit ominous doesn’t it? Well I ain’t going to tell you whether it is foreboding or not, but I will say that it leads to a subject that’s very close close to my heart (hehe..now I sound a bit ominous too don’t I?). Regardless, this is a cracking story from Burrett, and for a number of reasons; personal and not.
The other story that really grabbed me today was David Gaffney’s fleeting tale, Dead Star. In the end I only awarded it 3.5 out of 5, but only because I didn’t like how the story finished. If it had ended as well as it started it probably would have got the perfect 5. Am I being overly fussy? When it comes to stories, I’m always overly fussy. Sorry! 
Anyway, here’s how the rest of the reading panned out:
| Author | Collection | Story Title | *Comment | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nik Perring |  |
–REVIEW PENDING– | —- | —- |
| Alex Burrett |  |
The Best Bit of Advice | Choppy | Rating:   |
| Etgar Keret |  |
–REVIEW PENDING– | —- | —- |
| **David Gaffney |  |
Doctor Logic Dead Star |
Entertaining Splendid |
Rating:  Rating: |
| ***Dan Rhodes |  |
Spirit Squeals Straight |
Humourous Mediocre Average |
Rating: Rating: Rating: |
*Keeping in the spirit of flash I’m limiting myself to only giving single-word comments for each story.
**As they are incredibly short in length, David Gaffney’s stories are being ‘ticked off’ two at a time.
*** Dan Rhode’s stories are even shorter than Gaffney’s and to ensure that I finish his collection in time, I have to cover three per day.
Inspired by the publication of Nik Perring’s debut flash fiction collection, the Flash Clash Challenge is a fun contest in which
threefour other experts in the field are compared alongside Nik. You can find out more about it HERE.
About Rob
Ominous indeed…!