Matthew’s review of White Mirror: Stories (Deluxe Paperback Edition) > Likes and Comments

Hey Matthew, thank you for the kind and thorough review. I'm glad it resonated with you. I hear your disappointment with the brevity of these stories. This was an intentional choice and I was conscious it would create the tradeoff you highlight.

My aim was to create more of a montage of possible futures by way of a collage of snapshots. I'll admit a dual purpose that a story that ends too soon generates a thirst for more, somewhat like the cliche tactic of ending chapters with cliffhangers. But in this case I was trying to stoke curiosity. Instead of laying out everything comprehensively for the reader (think Iain Banks, Tolkien, Herbert), I wanted the reader to walk away wondering, not with an answer.

There's also the fact that attention spans are degrading at absurd rates, and so I wanted to write a collection of ultra short stories where a reader can pick it up and read a complete story in just a couple minutes, skip around the book, much like a buffet of hors d'oeuvres. I've had a couple readers reach out to say that this book "got them back into reading" which, for me, feels like a victory on this point.

You mention Black Mirror which explicitly tries to lay out how bad the future is going to be without question. I don't believe the appropriate response to black mirror is to waterboard readers with wide-eyed, zealous optimism. That's just a tribalistic response, which is, rarely effective. Instead, I just wanted to lay out an array of alternatives, like appetizers that have readers wondering what the main course will be. Inn this case, the main course is what will actually happens in the future. As I said, the tradeoff is that readers can feel left wanting for more. And for that Matthew, I apologize.

You'll probably like the novel I'm now working on, which, as you might guess, takes place in the future and is far lengthier and more . . .thorough.

Regardless, I'm honored you took the time to read the book and write about it so thoughtfully. Thank you Matthew.

Thank you for the response! Please do not apologize. I loved the book, already have plans to share with a friend who is going to take a read. I was nitpicking for my own review notes to remember my initial thoughts. I actually came back to it to re-read the Opta-bot story, as I enjoyed their back-and-forth. I suspect I need to just take a different lens to how I read and critique short stories.

What I meant was the name 'White Mirror' directly raises the idea of 'Black Mirror' in the mind of the reader who is familiar with the show's premise, rather than a 1:1 comparison to the show. I appreciate the more open-ended view of the future that yours presents, and of course, understand the artistic tradeoffs needed to create a collection of short stories. Looking forward to your next book, where you can expand on this more

Thank you, Cheers!