Engaging with fiction is an entirely subjective experience, nowhere more so than in reading the short story. It's almost impossible to apply the so-called rules of novel writing to the short story form which makes reading collections like this one an intriguing experience, not least in discovering what is deemed in an editor's eyes "the best". By their very nature short stories are enigmatic. Things are understated, suggested, sketched with a faint pencil, making an art of the skilful omission. Withholding is as necessary a part of the story as showing, provided the reader comes to the experience with a mind energetic enough to fill in the gaps or is impressed enough by lyrical prose that meaning becomes subservient to the form. Sometimes however the writer takes the licence too far and the gap between concept and outcome is too vast for the reader to bridge. That was the case for me with several of these stories. Others like Rosalind Brown’s beautiful story, “General Impression of Size and Shape” and Sophie Wellstood’s “The First Hard Rain” were examples of the short story form at its best.