Morning Motivation Series: The Best Fantasy and Sci Fi Short Stories for Your Daily Commute

Publisher's Summary

This audiobook contains eight fantasy and sci-fi short stories perfect for your morning commute. Each story is self contained and lasts for about 1 hr of listening.

Pale Rider - Two worlds collide in this action short story. Zombie destruction has leveled humanity. Gasoline fuel is no longer an option, but humanity must find a way to survive. In response to trying to restore our way of life, we engineer franken-monsters. Enter a world of dinosaur riders and zombie apocalypse.

Magic Factory - In a factory full of magic, some magic is bound to slip out and cause havoc. Magical industry knowledge is precious and hard to find. Even the most minor of spells require an enormous non-disclosure waiver. Magic factories are known to be high risk because of the stigma of sharing information. Unfortunately for the workers at this factory, that includes information on how to be safe.

Summer Sword - An otherworldly friendship is forged under stress and fear. Wyatt, a recently unemployed camper, is looking for an escape from responsibilities. Thunder Born is a wind esper looking to escape from those who want to murder him. Together they start something surpassing both of them.

Floating Ink - The world was cookie cutter ready for an alien invasion. Xenophen leveraged humanity’s growing into a knowledge economy. To control us, they simply needed to offer a better education. 

Vampire Caving - Join a risk taking vampire as he explores why vampires exist.

Swamp Monster Voodoo - A voodoo swamp creature battles for his way of life. An explorer battles for the swamp creature's treasure.

Frankenstein IT Support - Frankenstein's monster is retrained to provide IT support. After all, if you can't find good help, why not build it?

Moonlight Motor - A fair fight doesn’t start with hunger. That will to live drives a desperate, hungry man to find solace on a train. The only problem is that blending in with the passengers may be worse than getting caught.

©2019 JAMES LIVINGOOD (P)2019 JAMES LIVINGOOD

More Horror not Fantasy and Sci Fi Short Stories!

Morning Motivation Series: The Best Fantasy and Sci Fi Short Stories For Your Daily Commute
Author: James Livingood
Narrator: Multiple

I was given this free review copy audiobook through Audibook Boom, at my request and have voluntarily left this honest review.


I always like to preface any reviews I give with this information.
I am a 68 year old female who has been an avid reader since I was around 10 or 11 years old.
I read mainly for entertainment purposes although I do a lot of research in areas of personal interest.
I have a great interest in many things. Ancient History and Archeology are at the top of a very long list.

Review:
This book/audiobook is tagged or described as being "The Best Fantasy and Sci Fi Short Stories."
Really? Shall we rip the bandage off all at once and lessen the initial pain?

These are not what I consider to be "Fantasy" or "Science Fiction", but more horror stories, and had I known that, I would not have requested this audiobook.

With the exception of one story out of eight short stories, I found this collection to be uninspired and uninspiring. I did not find them funny, or interesting. This was not an enjoyable experience and I kept listening; hoping that the experience would become pleasurable. It did not happen in any way until I reached the 6th story which is titled "Vampire Caving."

I will say that since I normally don't get into Vampire stories, the premise of this story caught my attention and was intriguing. This story was a good story and I did enjoy it.
The Protagonist in this story is a vampire and is questioning and searching the origins of how vampires came to be and it was an interesting twist on the usual way vampires came into being..

Normally I listen to an audiobook in one setting unless it is 12 or more hours of listening time.

I had to break this experience up into three different times and by the time I finished this audiobook I was literally gritting my teeth and it was a matter of enduring it to finish it.

This is the first negative review I have ever given a writer and book and truthfully, it pains me to do so.

I know that writing is a very personal experience and what we create we are proud of. I can only hope the author will look at this as a learning experience and move forward.


In all fairness I will say that this type of story is not what I normally read. As a matter of fact if this were the only kind of book to read, I would not read. The other stories felt like an insult to my intelligence, and I am no genius!

If you like these kinds of stories, you might truly enjoy this collection.

Narrator Bryan Patrick Jones narrated the short story "Vampire Caving" very well and it was not hard to listen to him. He is someone whose work I would listen to again.

Fantasy and Sci-Fi short stories

An interesting set of eight short stories. Each story was about an hour long and had a different narrator. While some of the stories interested me more than others, each one kept my interest. All in all, an enjoyable listen.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Mixed Reviews

I got this story via audiobook boom and this is my voluntary review. There were several stories in this book. There were several stories that I would give 5 stars and some would get 3 stars. The narration was pretty good on all of the stories but some of them were disjointed. Some were good short stories with a great beginning, middle, and ending. I liked all of them but I enjoyed several. You know up front that they will be a suspend your reality and join the stories reality but at least two of them were suspend the reality that you just suspended and do another level of suspension.

A nice variety-pack anthology of short fantasy

I spend quite a lot of time listening to audio books, most evenings and also to & from work. I often listen to the same books more than once. As a collection of short tales I actually found the listening experience most enjoyable on my commute because it gave me a complete tale from start to finish in almost a single sitting - with a variety of narrators reading a tale each by the end of the week it felt like I'd actually consumed a lot more than I had, which is an interesting feeling of value. I particularly enjoyed Summer Sword, I found it mellow and reflective yet interesting, provoking some thought afterwards - as a good idea often does. The Vampire tale was the other particular stand-out for me too, I'm not a huge fan of derivative tropes so when I see something otherwise familiar presented from a fresh perspective, with a fresh twist, I generally enjoy musing on it afterwards.

The one thing I will say is that this is a prime example of "don't judge a book by it's cover"! The cover makes it look like a robo-compiled self-help book and I'd highly recommend the author look for alternatives to this because it doesn't do the contents justice!